Rhine Getaway Day 5

Rhine Getaway Day 5

It is hard to choose a favorite day, but this one may  have been the best.  We docked in the morning and rode buses to Heidelberg, Germany.  I had always wanted to see this beautiful city because I had been accepted at Heidelberg College in the US, and although I did not choose to attend that school, I always had dreams of seeing the original Heidelberg.  I was not disappointed!

Our first stop was the Heidelberg castle, which has been abandoned for three hundred years.  That is, it has not functioned as a castle for three centuries, but the structure has seen other uses.  Currently, its central courtyard is used as an outdoor amphitheater for musical productions.  It is a grand castle, incorporating several architectural styles.  There are many beautiful statues and sculptures, including one lovely sculpture of two children's faces.  These little ones were the children of one of the sculptors in the original construction of the castle.  They were tragically killed in an accident at the castle, and their father was given permission to sculpt a memorial to them.  They are the only statues that are not some kind of royalty, although to us, they seemed like a little prince and princess.  

I took dozens of photographs of the many faces and walls of the castle.  We spent most of the tour outside the castle walls peering at the ruins from without, but at one point we descended a long slope to the wine cellar.  We were met by a very large wine barrel that was about 12 feet in diameter.  As we gasped at its size, we were informed that this is the “baby barrel.”  We rounded the corner and saw the world’s largest wine barrel, which was about 30-40 feet in diameter.  It is about four stories high.  An entire dance floor sits on top of the barrel.  I think it held about 66,000 gallons of wine.  We learned that when the castle was built, wine was the safest drink available.  It had an alcohol content of about 5%, which was mild by today’s standards but was was strong enough to kill the bacteria that made the water much more dangerous.  It also tasted better than the water.  The castle tour was very beautiful and enjoyable.  

We then drove to the center of the old town, which was very beautiful.  We were surprised to learn the university has an urban campus and that most of the academic buildings were rather unremarkable.  The most beautiful buildings were the historic fraternity houses.  They were magnificent.  We had only about one hour of free time in the city.  We had to choose between shopping or eating.  I would have preferred the shopping.  Wayne wanted to eat authentic German food, and this was the place to do it.  He enjoyed a huge plate of German sausages and sauerkraut while I sampled the German bread and cheese.  We caught our bus back to the ship and sailed a short distance to Speyer, Germany.

It was an easy and lovely walk through several parks to the Speyer Cathedral and the lovely center of town.  Outside the cathedral there was a beautiful pavilion with a huge sculpture of the suffering in Gethsemane.  The figures were full of emotion and detail, and spiraled up to the central figure of Christ taking upon Him the sins of the world.  All about were the soldiers, the apostles, and the slumbering figures of Peter, James, and John.  I very poignantly remembered the plea, “Could you not watch with me one hour?”    

After touring the cathedral, we set out on our own to stroll the beautiful main street of the town.  At the far end of the street, the tower the once guarded the Medieval town, still stands.  It is the tallest remaining gate tower in Germany, and possibly in all of Europe.  Buses and cars now pass through it.  We walked through it and tried to breathe in all of the history that it has seen.  During our stroll, we played out one of my lifelong dreams, which was to sit at a street cafe in Europe while enjoying a treat on a lovely day.  Chocolate and cherry gelato was the perfect treat.  The sidewalk cafe was charming, and the weather was perfect.  The only thing not shown in the idyllic photo is the ever present smell of cigarettes smoke, which is much more common in Europe than in the US.

We enjoyed a long stroll around Speyer, cut short only by a threat of rain, which never came while we were out.  The whole day was every bit as wonderful and charming as my thoughts and dreams had always imagined that it would be.  Now it all seems like a dream, but it really did happen, and I have the photos and the happy memories to prove it.