We knew this would be a long day! But we had no idea how much would be packed into it.
A final farewell to Frau Scholz after an early breakfast and we were off…. stopping first at Heidelberg for a morning walking tour. This city on the River Necker is where Steffi Graf and Boris Becker played tennis as youngsters. It is home to LAMY pens and to chocolate made originally for young men to let young ladies know they were ‘interested’!
This small city is dominated by its castle and the huge church in the Market Square. This (the church) had once been divided into sections for Protestant and Catholic worshippers but now the barriers are down.
In its walls were images of pretzels – so that any arguments about size and the appropriate cost could be settled!
More amazing stained glass and some tempting souvenirs we managed not to buy because the shop’s ‘system’ was down – so those people who might have had upmarket pens as reminders that I’d been away were minus as was the local economy. Shame!
The same can’t be said of the coffee shop next door: delicious coffee and even more delicious Russian apple cake set us up for the anticipated lengthy drive.
Our co-travellers were really great about being punctual and we were soon off in the easterly direction needed to get us to our hotel in time for dinner. We had been warned there would have to be a stop because of the driver’s working hours and breaks – another surprise when the tour manager said, ‘Look to your right. This is where we’ll stop for half an hour’ and there on the hangar like structure to our right were Concordski and the French Concorde looking as though they were taking off in formation. This was the Sinsheim Museum of Technology and we decided we could have spent much longer there!!
Back on the bus, through lots of farmland until we reached our base for the next two nights, just in time for dinner – and really began to feel that the whole purpose of this trip was about to be fulfilled.
A fairly restful day – many miles travelled and a few surprises. We really are going to Oberammergau!
Living the Journey 