We began our city tour with a view of the beautiful castle from a square in town.
View of the Heidelberg Castle from a square below.
Instead of doing an entire city tour once we arrived, we decided to grab some food at the Heidelberg University Mensa.
The Heidelberg University Mensa
We had a beautiful day in Heidelberg! The weather was perfect, and the sun was shining, so we decided to sit outside with out food.
Once we finished eating, we began our city tour. We saw the old and new universities of Heidelberg, a students jail, a church in Heidelberg, and took a walk up the hill to the castle. The whole time, Thorston, a German professor at the university who was giving us our tour, was explaining the sites we were seeing in German, while I translated everything into English. This was done with the help of some of the Mexican students whose German was better than mine!
The old and new universities were interesting because of the differences in styles of the buildings. The old university was more of the romantic style and of the Baroque time period. There were adornments and gold accents, making it stand out much more than its newer counterpart. The new university was a bland, white building.
The old university building is on the left, while the new one is on the right.
One of my favorite parts of Heidelberg was the student's jail in town! We got to wander around this building and see the artwork of students who were thrown in here for drinking too much (mostly fraternity men, according to Thorston). I saw mostly dates around the late 1800's.
The Students Jail in Heidelberg - where students who drank too much would have to spend some time.
Afterwards, we walked into a nearby church to see the beautiful architecture inside.
The church in Heidelberg
Thornston had a story about this church, as well! Apparently, back in the day, there used to be a sex shop across from the Jesuit church. After going through a few appeals, the sex shop was removed and a law put in place so that there could not be any visible signs for sex shops in the city!
Once we were done at the church, we wandered up over 200 steps up to the Heidelberg castle.
Students on the walk up to the Heidelberg Castle.
A beautiful home that we passed on our way up to the castle - I would LOVE to live up here with this view.
The view on our walk up to the Heidelberg Castle!
Inside the castle, Thorston explained a few things about the architecture, showed us our meeting point in the city below, and told us we had to check out the 200,000 Liter keg underneath the castle.
A beautiful view of Heidelberg from the castle.
View from the castle walls.
Inside the Heidelberg Castle!
The Heidelberg Castle
A few of us went and checked out the huge keg.
Some of the girls with a huge keg (this ended up NOT being the biggest keg in the world).
The biggest keg in the world! It held 200,000 Liters of alcohol!
The Heidelberg Castle
One of our first stops was at the Heidelberg Starbucks (it was the best beverages I have ever had in my life). We grabbed a cookie-like ball that is called a Schneeball, and just wandered around the antique streets of the city. It was relaxing and I had a really great time just checking out whatever we felt like.
Our group ended up being all women initially! We took a picture at one of the squares that looked up onto the Heidelberg Castle.
After we went to Starbucks (see cup in right hand :D) we stopped by the bridge in Heidelberg.
On the bridge, there were locks. This is one of my favorite pictures :)
Our group on the bridge with the Heidelberg Castle behind us.
The bridge in Heidelberg
Our bus ride home was much like the one there, minus the traffic. I also took a nap on the way home. I made some dinner and had a nice, quiet night in.
My day today, Sunday, was much the same! I slept for most of the day, something I have not done for a long time, and relaxed. I did some laundry and worked on this blog! :)
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