Reise nach Heidelberg und Erbach

Today, I went with the ISU on a trip to Heidelberg and Erbach. In Heidelberg, we first hiked all the way up 315 steps to the top of the old castle. Once up there, we each paid the €1,50 to actually go in the castle. The main feature of this castle is the wine barrels inside. They have one that, I believe, is the largest wine barrel in the world. It was pretty epic. We walked around the castle a little more, but not a lot of it was really open to the public.

After the castle, we walked down to the cathedral nearby, Heiliggeistkirche. The inside of the church appeared to have been restored/rennovated. Only a few pieces of the original wall remained, most likely due to the engravings they contained. After spending a few minutes in the church taking pictures and pausing for a short prayer, I joined a group of people outside to look at some of the booths set up around the church. With the booths being tourist-y stuff, we opted instead to grab some food. We find this cafe close to where we need to get back on the bus, with like 45 minutes until departure. It took 30-40 minutes for everyone to get their food, so we all scrambled to eat and pay in time. I got this really good potato soup, and someone else in the group got an amazing apple tort with homemade vanilla Eis.

Managing to finish lunch on time, we caught the bus to head towards our next destination: Erbach. Erbach is a small town, an hour or so from Heidelberg. Our purpose for the trip, though, was to visit the annual Wiesenmarkt festival. The festival itself is much smaller than Oktoberfest, but still has 500,000+ visitors per year. Having been to the State Fair of Texas though, it seemed like just another fair. It was really just a lot of booths selling random goods, food and beer booths, carnival rides, and other common features to festivals back in the States. Had an Erbacher beer just to try the local brew, though it tasted like any other Pilsner to me. As a group of us left the festival, we saw this really cool one-man-band. Since ther group of us left the festival an hour and a half early, we wandered around by the town palace/castle. Eventually, it was time to depart, concluding the excursion.

Notes:

• Terms/Places page updated
• I can’t remember what everyone wanted me to bring back, so if you want something, comment or e-mail me. If I don’t have it in writing, you might not get it.