Dave and Lisa's Adventures: Day 5 - Heidelburg and Speyer

Day 5, Sunday, April 29, Heidelburg and Speyer

You may have noticed a distinct delay in this blog. I was getting sicker by the day. Could not breath well, lots of expectoral coughing fits and nasal nonsense which led to lack of sleep and exhaustion eventually. We had planned another 5 days in Europe at the conclusion of the boat tour but had to change plans and come home for medical treatment. We are writing this on May 5. Blog takes up with Heidelburg:

This day was so crammed with activity that I could not blog it same day. I will probably be a day behind from now on.

We left the boat early for Heidelburg, one of my most memorable cities from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Heidelburg is most famous for its university, its castle and the student life. We started with a walking tour of the old castle high over the city. Begun in the 13^th century, it was in a lot of wars between robber barons and was destroyed and repaired over the centuries. Still impressive. It holds the largest wine barrel which ever held wine. (Bad Durkheim has wine barrel which has a restaurant in it and is the largest in the world.) People in these castles must have had legs of steel from all the steps. The guide pointed out the large calves of the statues of nobles. She said that in those days large calves was thought to indicate high sexual performance. Try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LIhHCtqz-M

We then went into the old city. I found the gasthaus I used to frequent, Zum Roten Oxen, but it was closed on Sunday afternoons. I still have their beer mug hanging on my wall. We discovered a wonderful bakery and a place for lunch. Note about German pastry, it never tastes as sweet as it looks or we Americans expect. Lots of crème. Went to the large Catholic church. All the churches are museums of medieval paintings and sculpture. So many churches that they begin to blur for description purposes. We had foot long wursts and brotchen and sweet mustard and beer. Great.

On to Speyer. In spite of living near there in my past, I had never been there. After Hburg so many were too tired to walk there so we stalwart few went on the walking tour. I was too tired also but went anyway. It was a typical German Sunday afternoon with people strolling in the large city square, sitting at the many Eis cafes. Speyer is famous for originating the term Protestant. In 1529 a bunch of free city states and princes who were Lutheran protested the Edict of Worms which had banned Lutheranism. We visited another great cathedral.

During our trip on the Rhine, we encountered 12 locks. Our ship had a hydraulic mechanism to lower the bridge/wheelhouse in order to pass under the entry to the lock. The wheelhouse would lower to within a few feet of the top deck.