Heidelberg, Germany

From Lyon, we took the train to Frankfurt. It took us about 6 hours to get there. We arrived at the train station in Frankfurt, then took the metro to the Frankfurt airport where we picked up our rental car. Once we got the rental car, we drove to our hotel which was near the airport, but away from the city. 

It was dinnertime by the time we got settled in our hotel room, and the person at the front desk recommended a place across the road for dinner. So, we had a nice dinner outside, then headed back to the hotel. We drove into the little town by the hotel to try to find a grocery store, and we wandered around the store for a bit. It's kind of fun exploring foreign grocery stores! We made sure to pick up some Milka chocolate bars as well as some Kinder Eggs! 

The next morning, we drove to Heidelberg. It took us just under an hour to get to Heidelberg. The German countryside is really beautiful so it was a nice drive out there.

We arrived in Heidelberg, parked, then started walking around the town. Unfortunately since it was Sunday, almost all of the stores were closed.

The German architecture is so beautiful! The town was pretty quiet when we first arrived. There weren't too many people around, which made it nice for taking pictures. 

We kept walking by interesting stores, but were sad that they were all closed! Finally we found a large touristy shop and we went in. It had SO much stuff! There were souvenirs everywhere! The store had a path you had to follow throughout the shop and it kept going and going and going! There was everything from postcards, to cuckoo clocks, tons of Christmas decorations, little trinkets, and tons more! We all found quite a few fun souvenirs. 

Once we finished our shopping, we headed up the hill to Heidelberg Castle. The view from the top of the hill was pretty nice!

We then made our way to the ticket area for Heidelberg Castle. We bought tickets to enter the castle, as well as tickets for the English tour. Then we walked around while waiting for our tour to start.

The tour was actually pretty disappointing. They didn't take you anywhere interesting, you couldn't take pictures during most of the tour, and the tour guide was really hard to hear (and not because of his accent.). The first room we went into during the tour was really big and had high ceilings and the tour guide didn't talk very loud and the sound kept echoing in the room weirdly and we all missed almost everything the tour guide said. Other people on the tour kept asking others what the guy had said! No on could understand him. Which was quite frustrating because he was talking about the history of the castle and stuff. 

The tour lasted about an hour, and then we decided to go eat. I had looked up places in Heidelberg to eat the night before, and came across the Schnitzelhaus Alte Münz. We all wanted to try real German schnitzel, and none of us are big pork eaters so I was happy to find a place that also served their schnitzel made with chicken. 

With well over 100 kinds of schnitzel, there's something for everyone! All of the meals came with a salad and fries.

My dad and Michael were excited to get some German beer! And for the five of us, they put all of our fries in a huge bowl.

The schnitzel on the top left is the #64 barbecue (which I got)
The bottom left is the #30 paprika
and the right is the #9 cordon bleu Art

The food was all SO good! We ate almost everything. I would definitely recommend the Schnitzelhaus if you are in Heidelberg!

After our late lunch, we walked across the Old Bridge and took some pictures. 

The Neckar river.

A swan with her cygnets along the Neckar river.

Unfortunately this was our last day in Europe. We were all quite sad that the day was coming to an end. We walked back through town on our way to our car. We stopped for some ice cream on the way back. European ice cream is so much better than anything I have found in the US. Okay, pretty much all of the food is better than in the US!

So, we got back in the car and drove around the area for a little bit. We saw three castles just while driving! It's crazy to be in an area and see a castle and it's not even marked, it's just there like it's no big deal. 

Germany is a beautiful country and one I definitely want to visit again. One full day of sightseeing was definitely not enough!