Advertisement
Published: March 26th 2010
On Tuesday, March 16th we arrived in Heidelberg, Germany. Arriving a little later than we had planned, time was limited but the highlight was visiting the Heidelberg Castle. Construction started before 1214, the long history of the castle and city deserving a book not a blog post. At night the view from the castle overlooking the city was absolutely amazing. Once checked in at the hotel most of us ran out to grab a bite to eat then returned to the hotel bar. It was a nice relaxing evening, drinking and trading stories with the bartender.
Wednesday, March 17th we had a nice breakfast at the hotel restaurant then boarded the motor coach. We arrived in Stuttgart, Germany for our class program. The program was entitled “City for Children” and was put on by the City of Stuttgart. Focusing on health care, housing and education, Stuttgart has some fantastic goals for their future. I hope I get a chance to return someday with more time to explore the city and culture.
By this point in the trip I have grown quite jealous of the cities we have visited in Europe. I’ll just say it: compared to American cities these
European cities are unbelievably more progressive and forward thinking. From consideration for the wellbeing of the environment, to urban planning, social policy... The dedication and enthusiasm shown by citizens and city administrators is unbelievable. This is a link to Stuttgart’s plan, and I hope you all take a look at it: http://www.stuttgart.de/img/mdb/publ/10252/9879.pdf
After our program we headed to the Mercedes-Benz Museum. This was a fun experience! The museum is enormous and houses everything from race cars to celebrity-owned vehicles (see photos). After the tour and a stop by the souvenir shop we enjoyed a nice meal at the museum restaurant and were on our way to Rothenberg, Germany.
We arrived in Rothenburg around 5:30PM. Rothenburg is a walled off medieval city that has remained relatively unchanged since the 16th century. We had a group dinner at the hotel and then headed out to do the rounds with the night watchmen. After the structured tour a few of us decided to “walk the wall” which gave us a bird’s eye view of the town. I’m not going to lie - there may have been alcohol involved and I have no idea of what time this all went down. After
earning our junior night watchman badges we hit a bar and then headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest. The next morning we would leave Germany for Switzerland!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.102s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 61; dbt: 0.0624s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Heidelberg, Germany
Richard Brand
non-member comment
Good trip for a young man to see
Joe, so glad you have shared your time with us with the pictures. I wish I could be there with you. Uncle Richard