Heidelberg

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The trip from Luxemburg to Heidelberg was our most complex train journey so far. There was no direct train service between the two cities so Kerrie had to search our rail timetable to find what she thought was three connecting trains (but turned out to be four) in order to get to Heidelberg on time.

First it was a train that went briefly into France to a place called Metz. Then it was a train from Metz to a Saarbrucken just across the German border. This train consisted of only a single carriage and was quite full. Then a further change took us to Kaiserslauten (that famous place where the Socceroos beat Japan 3-1 in the World Cup 06). Here we had only a 3 minute stop and had to run to catch the next train to Mannheim. At Mannheim we had to change to the front carriages to continue to Heidelberg as the train split in two.

Once at Heidelberg (eventually) it was a short bus ride (our first trip on a bus) to get to our accommodation which was right in the heart of the old city area.

Like some of the other cities we had been to the old area of Heidelberg included a large pedestrianised square overlooked by a church and was surrounded by cafes. However, what Heidelberg had that the other cities didn't was a medieval castle located on a hill overlooking the whole old town area. Needless to say we wandered up to the castle and did a tour and took numerous photos looking out across the town. Later we crossed to the other side of the river which bisects the town and took some photos looking back across at the castle.

No trip to a city would be complete without a tram ride (for Ross anyway) so we boarded one of their trams. Ross was particularly excited because some of the new low floor Heidelberg trams were as long as 7 sections however there was also a mix of older high floor trams too.

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