Getting There

Just like the time I went to Barcelona, I had to wake up at a ridiculous hour to catch my flight.  Even though the flight was at 10, we had to take a few regional trains to get to the airport in Karlsruhe-Baden.  It was so early that when we got to Karlsruhe, we could see the sunrise.

Along the journey, a friend of mine forgot this iPod on the train and by the time he remembered, the train started leaving the station.  He watched the train leave with his iPod and could do nothing about it.  He immediately went to the Deutsche Bahn office for help.  The helpful staff there immediately called the next station that it would reach so that another employee could get on the train and retrieve it.  Lucky for him, they found it.  He would end up picking up his iPod after we came back from London.

I ended up sleeping for the whole flight and once we arrived we had to go through customs because the United Kingdom was not part of the “Schengen Area”, which is made up of a group of countries that allow travel within the group without going through customs, as in they have no internal border controls.

It was really easy talking to the customs agent because there was no longer any language barrier like in the rest of Europe.  It felt so nice speaking English again.  I no longer felt bad about not being able to speak a particular country’s language.  Speaking English felt so nice in fact, that I ended up having a brief chat with the customs agent about things like how I was liking Germany and what not.  Unlike the customs agents I see at the border between USA and Canada, the one in London was really nice.  I had initially thought that Londoners would give a really snobby vibe like the Parisians, but it didn’t seem like it so far.

After going through customs, we went to buy tickets for a bus to the city center.  Unfortunately for us, the lady selling tickets refused to accept our euros (good reason for that I suppose), so we had to exchange some money at a ridiculous rate.  We bought both our return ticket at the time too and for some reason the ticket lady wrote down 3:50 am for our return bus reservation (our flight was for 7 am).  We looked at it and we were just so sad to see we had to wake up at a ridiculous hour yet again to make our flight.  But then, we decided to stay up on our last night in London and not pay money for another night’s stay at the hostel.

The bus took us to Liverpool Street and from the looks of it, the districted seemed like an economic center.  People wearing business suits going about their business filled the streets.  From there, we bought our Oyster cards (kind of like the 八達通 in Hong Kong).  It is a prepaid card for taking the London public transit system.  One simply has to place the card on the scanner when entering and leaving the station.

We took the metro to King’s Cross and proceeded to find the hostel we booked.  It turns out that the hostel used to be a courthouse, which is kind of cool.  The interiors still have some of the furnishings of a courthouse and even has courtrooms that have been redecorated into hangout areas for guests.  Unfortunately for us though, when we actually saw our rooms, we were less than satisfied.  We got a super small room for eight people with beds arranged in two rows of four.  The only way we could get in and out of our beds was to crawl from the end instead of getting on from the side.  Solid walls surrounded the other sides and gave a really cramped feeling.  The showers there weren’t that clean either.  Regardless, that was the place that we had to stay at for the next two nights.

Imperial War Museum

Our first destination was the Imperial War Museum.  The museum chronicled the British Empire’s involvement in wars since the First World War up to the present.  In addition to exhibits from the two world wars, it even had exhibits on terrorism and the Iraq War.  Like many museums in London, this one was financially supported by the government so entry was free.  Upon seeing the building, one could already notice the 15 inch battleship cannons placed in the front – one from the HMS Ramillies and the other from HMS Roberts.

When we entered the museum, we were immediately overwhelmed by the sight of all the military vehicles in the museum’s atrium.  They had everything – tanks, fighter planes, rockets, artillery cannons, submarines, etc.  There was even a piece of rubble from the World Trade Center.

In addition to the exhibits about the wars that Britain fought, there were exhibits for the Holocaust as well as genocide in the modern era.  In the World War I section, there was even a reconstruction of a trench.  When I walked through it, I saw statues of soldiers going about their daily life at the time, like a soldier manning a machine gun or a soldier writing a letter to his parents.  In the World War II section, the museum managed to get a hold on the actual bronze eagle that was once on the Reichstag in Berlin.

We stayed at the museum until its closing time at 6 and afterward, we looked for a place to eat.  Just like in Rome, we looked at the Rick Steves’ European travel guide book for a recommendation.

Trafalgar Square

The guide book led us to a pub in Trafalgar square.  Before going to the pub, we decided to check out the place first.  We didn’t spend a lot of time here because we were in a hurry to eat.

The Lord Moon of the Mall

Following the guide book, it led us here to try out London’s “pub grub”.  The way the pub worked was that people had to find a table, take note of their table number and then go up to the counter to order food.  The servers would then bring the food over according to the table number.  I ordered sausages and mash (aka bangers and mash).

The pub itself seemed really British to me.  I don’t really know how, but it just gave me that vibe.  After our meal, we walked around the city for a little bit.  Since Trafalgar Square was really close to the tourist parts of London, we decided to go there.

Westminster

Westminster, one of the districts in London, is what people know London for.  This is where the Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and the Palace of Westminster are all situated in.

We didn’t stay here very long since we knew we’d be back here the next day when we took the walking tour.  We were all really tired too so we were all very eager to go back to the hostel to sleep.

Wellington Arch

At the beginning of the tour, everybody gathered by the Wellington Arch, a triumphal arch dedicated to Britain’s victories over Napoleon.  It is also the site of London’s second smallest police station up until 1992.

Part of the arch is also used for the ventilation from the London Underground (subway) and the heat coming out from the vents sometimes causes people to believe there is a fire.  Every now and then, somebody ends up calling the London Fire Brigade about it.

War Memorials

Throughout much of the city, war memorials can be seen almost everywhere.  Some are dedicated to certain people such as Churchill or Monty, while some are dedicated to Britain’s former colonies or even to the war effort on the home front.

Buckingham Palace – Changing of the Guard

Pretty much everyday at Buckingham Palace, tourists can see the guard change at Buckingham Palace.  We didn’t intend to go see this so when we arrived at Buckingham Palace, we saw a large concentration of tourists watching it.  There were so many people that I couldn’t even see what was going on.

To see the guards up close, we went elsewhere where there weren’t that many tourists.  In the past, people were allowed to go up to the guards and annoy them, but ever since one of the guards flipped out at a tourist, tourists are no longer allowed to go up to the guards anymore.

We tried to annoy the guards anyway though.  The tour guide got everyone to shout out “penis” really loud to see if it would make the guard laugh.  According to the guide, it works about 1 in 4 times.  This guard didn’t laugh though.

Trafalgar Square (again)

The first time we came here, we didn’t really know the significance of the statue in the city square, but the tour guide explained it to us.  The statue was of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, a British war hero involved in the Battle of Trafalgar against the French and Spanish navies.  His fleet won the battle so decisively that his fleet took no losses in ships despite having a smaller fleet than his enemies.  Unfortunately for him, he died during the battle.  It is said that his crew put his body in a wine barrel to preserve his body so that he could have a proper burial in England.  However, since his men had won such a huge victory, they ended up drinking the wine from the barrel that the admiral’s body was in, hence producing the phrase, “tapping the admiral”.

Horse Guards Parade

The next destination was the Horse Guards Parade, basically an area with an open field for horses.  It wasn’t that special I suppose.

Westminster Abbey

According to Rick Steves’, Westminster Abbey is one of the most magnificent churches in the English speaking world.  When I read that, I figured that it might not be as good as the churches that I saw in Rome.  Nonetheless, I still wanted to check out this place.  It would have been nice to see the inside, but it would cost a hefty 13 pounds to enter.  With such an expensive admission fee (compared to churches everywhere else which have free entry), I couldn’t bring myself to pay that.  The churches in Rome are probably way nicer anyways.

Palace of Westminster and the Big Ben

Pretty much right beside the abbey was the house of parliament, also known as the Palace of Westminster.  Attached to this building was the Big Ben.  I didn’t really get a good picture of the palace during the day though.

More Pub Grub

At the end of the tour, we went to a pub that had connections with the tour guide so we all got discounts on our meal.  I ordered fish and chips, one of Britain’s specialties I suppose.

Churchill War Rooms

After eating, I went to the Churchill War Rooms Museum, while my friends went to the National Gallery.  The war rooms was a museum set up such that it displayed the underground complex that the British government used during WWII.  Many of the rooms had been untouched since the end of the war.  In some instances, once the war ended, the staff went home and never returned to the command center.

The meeting room, map room, and many of the dormitories in the complex still had the old 40’s vibe.  Paraphernalia was left untouched.  Even maps showed the old names for different British colonies and still had the pin holes leftover from mapping out troop movements.

A large slab of concrete covered most of the complex to protect its occupants from bombs.  Nobody knew how well the slab would protect people, but luckily, the complex was never hit.  While walking around the complex, there are areas where a speaker will play the air raid siren sound.  I guess that was for authenticity, which was really cool.

Buckingham Palace

Now that the wave of tourists had subsided, I finally got the chance to get a good look at Buckingham Palace.  It was one of those places that didn’t look amazing in architecture and was a place where one would have to go while on a trip to London.  Maybe the next time I come to London, I will buy tickets to visit the inside of the palace.

The Cafe in the Crypt

For dinner, we looked at the guide book yet again to find a place.  This time we were recommended a place called “The Cafe in the Crypt”.  It was under a crypt of a church in Trafalgar Square.  When I ordered my food, the server for some reason was really delighted by the fact that I could speak English.

Platform 9 3/4

I hadn’t known before that in the Harry Potter books, Harry Potter went to Hogwarts from King’s Cross Station, which happened to be the station that our hostel was close to.  On our way back to the hostel that night, we came across the famous Platform 9 3/4.  There was even a cart halfway through the wall – just like in the books.

English Breakfast

Because the breakfast at our hostel sucked so much, we all decided to go have an English style breakfast on our last day.  The breakfast came with eggs, mushrooms, bacon, tomatoes and sausages.  It was really oily, but delicious.

The British Museum

According to Rick Steves, the British Museum “is the best chronicle of human civilization…ever”.  With a recommendation like that, we had to go to it.  After seeing it, I agree with Rick Steves.  The museum had information on pretty much every continent in the world.  Its most well known artifact, the Rosetta Stone was also on display.  Apparently, it was the stone tablet that allowed modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

In the exhibit on ancient Greece, the museum showcased a lot of sculptures from the Parthenon.  I guess that would explain why I didn’t see any of those things when I went to Greece.  Another really nice exhibit was the one on mechanical clocks.  It displayed a lot of the different mechanisms that clocks were built out of.  Being part mechanical engineer, this was of a lot of interest to me.  I ended up analyzing the entire mechanism and figuring out exactly how clocks work.

The Millennium Bridge

Our next destination was the Tate Modern Art Gallery.  Before going inside, I went to see the nearby attractions first.  I learned of the Millennium Bridge during my engineering courses because it was an example of a badly designed bridge since it was affect by resonance.  Simply put, the bridge physically wobbled as people walked on it.

Shakespeare’s Globe

Based on the original Globe Theatre, this theatre is a modern reconstruction of the old one that burned down.  I didn’t know before that the original one had burned down.  I thought I was seeing the original.

St. Paul’s Cathedral

During the Blitz, St Paul’s Cathedral became a national symbol of resistance.  During the sustained strategic bombing of Britain during WWII, this cathedral somehow still stood.  Many of Britain’s heroes are buried here, namely Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, Sir Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, the Duke of Wellington, and Charles Cornwallis.

Normally, it costs money to go inside as a tourist, but since it was Sunday, the church was open for church services.  This allowed tourists to go in for free, but they weren’t allowed to take any pictures.  As usual, I disobeyed that and took pictures anyway.

I probably could have done something similar at Westminster Abbey also, but that was on the other side of town so I didn’t bother.

Tate Modern Art Gallery

Like many museums in London, this one was also free.  Looking at the different works of art here, I understood pretty much none of them without reading the description.  Interpreting art just isn’t my thing I guess.  Although, there was an exhibit about anti-Nazi works of art that was really interesting.  One photo in particular portrayed Nazi Germany as a house of cards, while another showed a bunch of skeletons depicting what Germany will be like in the future.  Another photo, although not anti-Nazi, it depicted the Japanese waking up the “sleeping giant” known as China when they invaded.

Chutneys Euston

For dinner, we went to a vegetarian Indian buffet.  For 7 pounds, we could eat as much as we wanted.  What a good deal.  That was my first time ever eating Indian food and it was really delicious.  I ate about three plates before I was full.  I didn’t get hungry until 3 in the morning.

Tower Bridge

At night, we went to see the Tower Bridge and the London Tower.  I originally thought the London Tower was just a tower, but it turned out the tower was actually part of a giant castle.

We walked across the bridge and saw the HMS Belfast, a British cruiser docked on the side of the river.  Apparently, the ship had been converted into a museum and was part of the Imperial War Museum.  If I had known about it earlier, I probably would have visited this too.

Going Home

Since our bus time was 3:50 am from Liverpool Street Station, we took a taxi to there to wait.  We went to a nearby restaurant and stayed there for a few hours playing cards.  When the bus came, we got on it and just slept.  We slept some more on the plane and on the train until we got home.  My original plan was to nap when I got home, but after so many naps earlier, it didn’t feel necessary anymore.  It probably would have ruined my sleeping schedule too.  I still felt the effects of the sleep deprivation the day after too.  Either way, it was a good trip.  I think I want to come back some time in the future.

More photos here

Day 109

Also known as the spring festival, the Fruehlingsfest takes place in Stuttgart in the middle of April and early May. The city sets up an entire amusement park in an area in Bad Cannstatt filled with roller coasters, and an assortment of rides. Every year, the amusement park gets packed up after the festival ends. Seems not worth the effort to me. It looked and felt a lot like the Fair at the PNE in Vancouver where parents brought their children. But despite its German style, like the Bavarians, the bars served a maβ of beer as well. Many stayed in the beer tents of the Stuttgart Hofbraeu drinking nonstop and stood on the benches waving the giant beer mug around. Others linked arms and danced. The atmosphere felt super German. Although in Munich, my friends and I visited The Hofbraeuhaus, the atmosphere felt more tourist-like, which took away from the real German part of it. Not many tourists visited the Fruehlingsfest. My friends and I all drank a maβ of beer (and more later on) to stick with the tradition. I went to the Fruehlingsfest with some friends from Bosch and others I met from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Ironically though, most of the people we went with came from Canada or USA, with one coming from France and another from Brazil.

Around the park, it looked like any amusement park. Loud sounds coming from speakers playing music, screams coming from a roller coaster nearby, and the amazing smell of all the super unhealthy fried foods kept reminding me of all the time I spent at the PNE during the past few summers in Vancouver. But inside the beer tents, the atmosphere totally changed.

From outside the beer tent, I could already see the giant party going on inside. Watched by security guards around the perimeter, they made sure that no minor could get in. For the first time, I actually people showing their ID’s before going in. Even at 2:30 in the afternoon, I already saw a man passed on drunk lying outside the beer tent.

While all the parents and their children stayed outside playing on the rides, everyone else stayed in the beer tent to drink the day away. We stayed in the beer tent for about an hour before we walked around the park. I went home at around 10 pm, after an eventful day of taking part in the German beer culture.

Now that I’m not occupied by episode after episode of TV shows, I can finally catch up on my blog rather than keeping a queue of all the things I want to blog about. In my attempt to go somewhere new every weekend, I chose to go to Freiburg im Breisgau last Saturday.

I woke up early in the morning at around 5 and got ready to leave the house at 6:30.  I probably woke up my landlord’s family downstairs from the running water while I showered, but I unfortunately, I can’t really do anything about that.  I figured leaving an hour early to meet up with my friend at a train station that only takes half an hour to get to should give me quite a bit of flex time. Half an hour seemed like a lot to me, until I saw how long I had to wait for my train.  I waited a whole twenty minutes for it.  The worst part about the wait was that I never charged my iPod.  I stood around and silently waited.  Kind of like watching grass grow.  Although in retrospect, I could have left the house a little later, but at least I wouldn’t miss my train.

After meeting up with my friend, I we patiently waited for the train.  From the corner of my eye, I saw something tiny moving around on the tracks.  An animal?  It was a mouse, or a rat.  I don’t know the difference.  I tried my best to catch a picture of it while it zipped around and underneath the train tracks.  It kind of felt like playing that old N64 game, Pokemon Snap.  If this was Pokemon Snap, I would have gotten a low score for that picture.

The train arrived at around 7:30 and it would stop at Karlsruhe.  On the ride there, my friend and I just talked while looking looking out the window.  After we arrived in Karlsruhe, we had to wait a half hour for our connecting train.  The moment I looked out onto the station platforms after stepping out of the train, the sight instantly reminded me of the City 17 train station in Half-Life 2 (everything reminds me of games doesn’t it?)

While walking around the train station trying to kill time, we found a place that sold 5 Berliners for 2 euro.  Although called a Berliner, it clearly has nothing to do with someone from Berlin.  Despite the misleading name, Berliners are a pastry that is like a European version of a doughnut (never ever call it that).  It’s got sugar on top and jam filling on the inside.

After boarding the connecting train, I talked to my friend about how long train rides were.  I don’t know if it’s because English attracts attention, but a random stranger sitting across from us started talking saying how it is perfectly normal for train rides to take a long time.  Since he was German and probably didn’t get a lot of practice with English, he spoke to us with a heavy accent.  He started talking about how sometimes people will commit suicide by train, which causes trains to stop in the middle of nowhere and everyone on board is forbidden to get out.  The weirdest part of it was that train suicides were seasonal.  According to him, more people commit suicide by train in the summer.  After speaking to him a little more, I found that even some Germans read manga.  I didn’t know that manga was that popular.  I even saw Dragon Ball manga translated in German in a bookstore.

Two train transfers and three and a half hours later, we arrived in Freiburg im Breisgau.  According to Wikipedia, it’s the warmest place in Germany.  As usual, the first thing we do upon arriving at a new place is to look for a map to find the tourist information center to get a map.  I had already looked up what sights to see the night before, so all I needed was a map to tell me how to get there.  Even without the map, we could both see the tower of the Freiburger Munster standing tall above every building in its vicinity.  All we needed to do was head in that direction.

Thus far, the Freiburger Munster is the most amazing work of church architecture I have seen, inside and outside (The only place that I think could be better is the Sistine Chapel, but I haven’t been there yet). I would describe it, but I’m terrible at descriptive writing.  Good thing is that a picture is worth a thousand words!

After walking around inside for a little bit, I came across a set of statues in front of a window set up in a way that a group of statues were all looking at the body of Jesus Christ.  When I was looking at these statues, it happened to be around noon, and the sunlight shined through the window and I could see the glare.  It seems as if the scene was designed this way: to have the Light of God shine down.

Walking around some more, I came across a statue that looked suspiciously like Chancellor Palpatine of Star Wars (there’s my nerdiness popping up again).  Who knows, maybe George Lucas got inspiration from this and found an actor that looks like the guy in this statue.

On our way out, we learned that we could visit the church tower.  Despite the popularity of the church tower, there was no elevator (makes sense, since the church is quite old) and had a set of the narrowest spiral staircases ever seen.  Two people could barely pass through each other.  One wrong step would cause one to tumble around and around down to the bottom and bring other people along in a human snowball.  Luckily for me, that did not happen, but it sure was tiring walking up all those steps.  At the top, we had a semi decent view of the town.  I say semi-decent because of the maintenance that was going on.  For three weeks in a row, every main attraction in each city I went to was under maintenance.  There was the Heidelberg Castle, Bebenhausen Abbey, and now this.  In addition to being able to look around town, I also saw the mechanism for the church bells.

On our way out of the cathedral, we smelled a strong scent of bratwurst and because of that, I decided that’s what i was going to have for lunch.  I guess my lunch was like a European hotdog (I have no idea what they call it).  They took a bread roll, cut it in half and put bratwurst and onions inside.  Like everyone else, I added ketchup and mustard.  I don’t think I can go back to eating regular North American sausages again after eating bratwurst.

A unique feature of the city is that water canals run through the town.  Upon first sight, one would think they were some sort of sewage system.  Known as Bachle, they were once used to provide water for firefighting and feed farm animals.  It is said that whoever steps in one must marry a Freiburger.  Around the town are a set of gates.  One of them, the Martinstor, has now been desecrated by McDonald’s.  How they managed to put their brand on such a historic structure is beyond me.

In the city is also a trail that leads up to the mountain, Schlossberg, for a view of the town.  I believe there was also public transportation that took the lazy folks up there.  As if the stairs at the church bell tower wasn’t even enough, we were now faced with yet another seemingly endless set of stairs.  We’d look up the mountain seeing how much further we needed to go every now and then.  Once we reached the top, we realized that it wasn’t really the top.  There was yet another set of staircases leading up.  It’s just that we couldn’t see it before we got all the way up.

On our way home, I came across a vandalized billboard on the side of the street.  The vandals had drawn a Hitler mustache on the peoples faces.  I found it kind of amusing since that doesn’t really happen in North America.  Not Hitler mustaches, anyway.

 On the train ride home yet another random stranger talked to us.  Except that the stranger this time wasn’t German.  He was an American who had just arrived in Stuttgart to work.  Like us, he spent his weekend traveling.  My friend and I were talking about gun control at the time when the guy started talking to us.  Apparently in his state of Virginia, one has the right to shoot someone in self defense to take someone’s life when their own is in danger.  He even told us a story about how someone he knew shot at a guy sneaking around suspiciously in their yard and how a friend of his has a license to carry a concealed weapon around.  It felt kind of nice to hear North American English again.

At the train station, while waiting for a connecting train, a third random stranger started talking to me.  Three in one day.  That has to be a record.  This time it wasn’t because I was speaking English.  This time it was because I’m Chinese.  A Turkish looking fellow looked at me as he walked by pushing a cart of luggage.  He looked at me and said “ni hao”, which is hello in Mandarin.  I was so surprised that I didn’t know how to reply, all I did was smile back in appreciation.  I guess Chinese people are a rare sight around here. 

For some reason, on the train ride home, the train stopped suddenly in the middle of nowhere.  I was reminded by the German fellow I talked to earlier about train suicides and I hoped that it didn’t happen.  Fortunately, it wasn’t anything serious and the train continued on its way after a few minutes.  After a nice day of sightseeing and hiking around, I got home and rested for the next day, which I spent uploading photos, blogging, and random household chores.  Sounds like quite the opposite in excitement compared to the day before.

My photo album for Freiburg im Breisgau

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to travel to Heidelberg to see many of the historic monuments and architecture that the city had to offer. To get there, my friend and I took the Regionalbahn and the Regional Express. When I got on the train, I happen to see a group of Asian tourists and they kind of gave me a strange look. The only reason I can think of to explain that is that they probably don’t see a lot of Asians around here. In fact, seeing Asians other than myself surprised me too. While taking the train, I realized how much more I enjoy train rides over car and airplane rides. Probably my biggest pet peeve is the lack of leg room. The train I took was quite spacious and didn’t have a lot of people riding it so I was able to extend my legs as far as I wanted without disturbing anybody.

Upon arrival, we found the nearest tourist information center and got a map of the area. We knew which sites we wanted to see, but didn’t know how to get there. A short walk later, we reached the Neckar River, the river that separates the two sides of Heidelberg. Walking a bit further, we reached the Old Bridge (middle and right photo), situated in the Old Town (Altstadt), the historic city center.

Walking through the historic city center exposed us to a lot of the baroque style architecture left over from the past (left photo). Instead of asphalt, the ground was made of cobblestone. Walking through the town made me feel like I was an anachronism. The only things that made the area feel modern was the addition of signage for cars, plumbing on the sides of buildings and the street lamps. In addition to the architecture, there was a German man that ran a souvenir store at the side of a church on Marktplatz speaking to group of Taiwanese tourists in Mandarin. That totally surprised me. He knew enough Chinese to have an actual conversation with the tourists.

The church that the man stood near selling souvenirs is called the Church of the Holy Spirit (Heiliggeistkirche), one of the three major churches in the city. The other two is The Church of the Jesuits (Jesuitenkirche) and St. Peter’s Church. The atmosphere in the Jesuitenkirche was so silent that when I put my backpack down and placed it on the pew a little too hard, a loud echo could be heard. It seemed almost disrespectful to make such a noise. I sat there for at least fifteen minutes just looking around before getting up. The paintings themselves seem to be the originals since upon close inspection, the cracks in the paint could be seen.

Each of these churches are located near the main street (Hauptstrasse), where a large number of tourists frequent. Along the street are mainly souvenir stores, cafes, restaurants, and ice cream places. The picture I took of the main street doesn’t look like there was a lot of people there, but later on the street became packed with people. I also saw a some modern franchises such as H&M. Every time I saw a store like that, it felt like these large businesses were slowly taking over the town.

However, the main attraction here has to be the Heidelberger Schloss. Anybody that doesn’t visit this castle when visiting the town is definitely missing out. Situated on the hillside, the castle could be seen from the ground. It looks quite high up, but the walk up there isn’t daunting at all. It’s probably the fact that there was so much to see along the way up so people don’t remember that they’re getting tired. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good enough angle to take a huge picture of the entire front side of the castle.

Through many of the wars in the middle ages that this castle has been through, lots of damage could be seen on the castle walls. The main one is the destroyed turret. Due to an explosion, a section of the wall fell down in one gigantic chunk.

At the top of the castle, one can almost see the entire city of Heidelberg. The old bridge, the churches and the market square can be seen from above. I managed to capture this gorgeous view.

After reaching the top of the castle, we decided to hike up to Konigstuhl, the very top of the hill. We learned that the hike would take an hour and that the destination was 350 m above where the castle was situated. We had already walked around for a great deal of time, but for some reason, I agreed to do the hike. Much of the hike was on muddy or icy paths that went uphill. One wrong step would mean falling at least ten meters down the slope. I dubbed it the “Stairway to Heaven”. If I fell, I’d die and end up in Heaven. It was already tough enough going up the slope, but I saw a mountain biker who dared to bike down the mountain despite a sign clearly stating not to bike down the hill. We were literally on a slippery slope. Somehow, we managed to get lost along the way, but one of the park rangers (I’m not sure if they’re even called that here) gave us a map and showed us the direction to go. As I walked up, I could feel my leg muscles burning with every step. But our timing couldn’t have been better. We made it up as the sun was setting and I managed to get a picture of the sun’s rays shining through the layer of clouds.

After spending some time walking around the peak, we took a bus back down. It was a nice break. It had been a long day of hiking around, but it was very rewarding, to be able to finish the hike up to Konigstuhl. In the evening, we took the train back home. By the end of the day, I had taken 112 pictures of the historic place.

More photos here