Sorry if the pics didn't come out too well. Had to turn the quality down quite a lot.
Anyways, been to Heidelberg yesterday with the girlfriend. Went the 12kms by bike, walked along the "Philosophenweg", from which most of those photos were taken, crossed the old bridge and headed into the old city centre. But I'm gonna spare you with photos of crowds of people who had noting better to do than going shopping. ;P
The old city centre. On the left edge, the castle, in the foreground the Neckar.
A better look of the significant buildings of the city: The castle and the old bridge.
A view towards the more modern part of the city, which was surprisingly spared from WW2 (Thanks, RAF & USAF!). Nonetheless, it wasn't spared from the building construction frenzy in the 1970s, which was responsible for some
really ugly buildings in the city.
By the way: If you look
very closely at the horizon line, you can see the two cooling towers of the nuclear power plant Phillipsburg which is about 35kms away from the city. Nice VFR conditions, eh?
A view from the old bridge downward the river. If you had a boat, you could go from here to Mannheim, join the Rhine there and from the Rhine, you would get anywhere you want since it ends up in the North Sea. That's where this ship probably is heading.
A 180 degree turn reveals the complete, almost idyllic contrary. If you followed the river upstream, you would pass through the southern regions of the Odenwald, then through parts of Swabia and you would finally end up in Stuttgart, where the shipable part of the Neckar ends.
Again, the castle. Built from 1400 till 1544, it was residency of various electors ("Kurfürst") until it was destroyed by our favourite enemies, the French in 1693. Restauration works were stopped in 1764, when a thunderstorm set the castle on fire. Today, the castle is acessable for tourists and is a location for various happenings, for example "Heidelberg in flames", a nightly lightshow together with fireworks, simulating the burning castle.
Small side note: The castle contains the world's biggest barrel, containing almost 222000 litres of whatever you wanna put in there.
Another aspect of the city, which I haven't shown yet are the students along with the universities. If it comes to studying in a perfect atmosphere, nothing can beat Heidelberg. The downside 'though is, that living in this city is quite expensive and the universities are of a very high standard, so that you need to be rather good if you want to enter.
Well, I hope you liked this little tour. I couldn't show every nice site in this city, since this would have taken too much time.
I suggest going there for a visit instead, but don't rely on as a cheap alternative for a hotel, since I'll be moving away this summer.
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