When I was planning the holiday, my friend asked where I was heading to. Despite telling her a couple of times, she only remembered one place - Heidelberg. Unfortunately it wasn't because Heidelberg holds any significant importance, merely because there is a suburb in Melbourne with the same name.

The Germany's Heidelberg though is a college town in Baden-Württemberg on the Neckar River in south west Germany. It is the home to Germany's oldest and one of Europe's most reputable universities - Heidelberg University. I was told that there are many medical scholars from Heidelberg.

I was on a rather empty train from Bacharach to Heidelberg and the train was one of those with no electronic boards indicating which stop we were at or passing through. It was quite tricky to spot the signboards most of the time too. I mostly relied on the expected arrival time but on this leg of the my journey there were some delay when I was on board. I went with the logic that Heidelberg should be a biggish station so it would be easy to spot. That almost got me getting off at the one station before though, as that was an even bigger station, Mannheim. Anyway, all was good I arrived safely without dramas. I found out later that an email was sent to me by Bahn to inform of the delay but of course, I didn't have internet connection then. Ha!


I was being quite realistic and if all fails, the one place I wanted to go was Schloss Heidelberg. It felt ages to walk up to the castle in the hot weather. I stopped midway to get a sandwich and a slice of cake for lunch. Both were not memorable plus the cake was a bit dry too so I'll spare the photos.


Schloss Heidelberg was the last castle I visited, it was also the largest, the most crowded but the one I least enjoyed. I paid an additional fee for a tour to visit the interior of the castle and picked the English tour. It was a little disorganised, started off with the tour guide had to send a few people out because they sneaked in without a ticket and on their way out, they wandered to another section of the castle so she had to run after them. Unfortunately it was also a little hard to hear her due to the space, coupling with some echo and noise around.



The admission ticket also include entry to the the German Apothecary Museum (Deutsches Apothekenmuseum) which displays a large collection of things used in pharmacist in earlier times. The souvenir shop at this apothecary museum was small but interesting. Oh! It was the only place I've been that sold the elusive magic colour pencils that my sister showed me, the exact ones.


After that I wandered back down, heading towards the direction of the Old Bridge (Alte Brücke), actual name Karl-Theodor-Brücke. The bridge connects the Old City with the opposite bank that was across from the Neckar River.


After that I cut across the Marktplatz area and made my way back to Steffi's Hostel where stayed the night.




Side note: This is me at the moment... if I can't see the world, the world can't see me... maybe?