Weather 25’C

Heidelberg is a beautiful city, it’s the first German town I’ve come across that I could actually live in. We began with a walk to the university expecting to see the beautiful old 18th century library building only to discover, after an hour after wandering aimlessly, that it’s actually in the centre of town NOT in the University. That’s ok, we thought, we wanted to find the University shop anyway. Guess what? It’s also in the centre of town – we should have known. We gave in and paid for a taxi to the famous Heidelberg Schloss (at the opposite end of town).

Initially built as a fort the 1500’s??? …………………………..We paid for a guided tour which was good as it meant we got to go inside the parts still standing. The guide did warn us however that because the castle has had so many incarnations due to its destruction on numerous occasions there was barely anything left of the original building and that most of the room decorations were fake reconstructions. I can attest to this as some of the renaissance dresses on display were made from $4 per meter bright silver polyester material from Spotlight. I was just a little disgusted at the lack of an attempt at authenticity when people started madly taking photos of them so I guess they had fooled those less observant tourists. After the tour we wandered the rest of the gardens around the grounds, it was a beautiful day but the castle was very busy so we deciede to head for lunch somewhere else.
As yesterday was a public holiday, in true Aussie style, most Germans took today off and made it an extra-long weekend, so the streets of Heidelberg were unusually busy. We wandered aimlessly for a bit, enjoying the sights, sounds and the people watching and finally found the University shop. We bought some lunch and sat in the park under the shade of a beautiful tree to enjoy it.
We are now in Mindelheim, having spent three hours in the car getting from Heidelberg. It’s a very quaint German country town that no-one has ever heard of. I think we are the only people in the hotel and possibly the only international tourist in the entire town. I believe that only about 10% of Germany’s tourism comes from overseas and 90% is made up of Germans on holiday, so there aren’t many of us to begin with, and certainly none in Mindelheim. Mindelheim is an old town but the inhabitants are clearly proud of its history and so have repainted and reconstructed almost the entire town square in the 1980’s version of a 18th century German town. It’s so cute and a little kitsch with possibly a pinch of tacky. It’s like watching one of those 1980’s BBC period dramas – they’re still good but with a slightly tacky 80’s vibe about them. That said, the foods good, the beers cold and it has the most gorgeous original clock tower that not only tolls at each quarter hour but chimes on the hour as well – it’s totally charming. It also has the advantage of being an hour in each direction from everything we want to see over the next few days. Oh and the lovely middled aged hotel owner does not speak a word of English. Hilarious!