Farewell to Heidelberg

On our final day in Heidelberg, we got up early and had another fine breakfast at the hotel. We again tricked Lucy into eating bread by slathering it in Nutella. We went back to the Rathaus, or government building, to return our itour. Jacob insisted on using the potty again. Lucy needed a diaper change too, so it worked out well for us.

We wandered the streets on the way to the playground we found yesterday. We came across the Ritterhaus, the oldest house in Heidelberg, now a hotel.

Hotel AND restaurant!

We also discovered an initially puzzling roof structure in the university plaza. Why the strange bowing of the roof line? Was some dormer not installed properly? After looking at it for a while, we figured it out.

The top floor is a smiling face with eyes in the roof

The plaza also had another fountain which Jacob enjoyed.

No pigeon is brave enough to sit on the head of a lion with a sword!

Finally we made it to the playground, where much of the same fun from the previous day was re-enjoyed. Growing hungry, we headed out to find a snack at some random shop somewhere. We walked through the student center, which had yet another fountain.

We found a little bakery on the way back to the hotel. We chose a snack for now and some items for lunch. At the hotel, we packed up everything and I carried the bags down the 68 winding steps, one bag at a time. We checked out and walked half a block to the taxi stand to get a ride to the train station.

The cabby was pretty knowledgeable and chatty. He told us about the oldest house up the street (which we had just seen), the schloss hotel up on the hill where Mark Twain stayed, how the old bridge was a fairly recent construction (destroyed by the Germans near the end of World War II to prevent the Allies crossing the Neckar, rebuilt later), and on and on. He did tell us some interesting things. We asked about all the bicycles in town. Was the bicycle popular because of the university? He said no, about 20 years ago everybody drove cars. Now, people are environmentally motivated to use bikes. That explains the various ages of bicyclists. He said that nowadays 25% of teenagers aren't even interested in getting driver's licenses, which shocked him and us too.

We arrived at the train station with 45 minutes to spare. We found a bench right next to a small pharmacy. Mommy took Lucy there to get drinks. Lucy picked out some chips to eat, but wanted to change her mind once she spotted the gummy bears. They had already checked out, so it seemed like she was out of luck. But then I had to get a drink, which meant gummy bear for her. As I looked in the refrigerated section, I discovered a can of beer is cheaper than a soda! To save money, I had a beer with lunch.

We ate and found out train to go to Esslingen, a charming town near Stuttgart, for our last few days in Germany.