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Published: December 28th 2022
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Heidelberg city centre
We found that the city Heidelberg was a good place to make a stop to break a long journey. Heidelberg and a bunch of places around Frankfurt
When we travelled in Costa Rica a few years ago we after a while noticed that most of the sites worth visiting were national parks. National parks are often nice, but when we have seen three we are not so keen on seeing a fourth and a fifth. We then prefer to see something else. In Costa Rica "something else" was hard to find.
When we travelled in Czech Republic a few years ago we after a while noticed that most of the sites worth visiting were historical city centres and castles. Historical city centres and castles are often nice, but when we have seen three we are not so keen on seeing a fourth and a fifth. We then prefer to see something else. In Czech Republic "something else" was hard to find.
One thing we really like about travelling in Germany is that there are so many different kind of sites to visit. There is a vast variety of interesting sites. Getting tired of seeing the same thing over and over again was not an issue.
Heidelberg One
Heidelberg city centre
Heidelberg has a pretty city centre day when we travelled from one place to another we found that the city
Heidelberg was a good place to make a stop to break a long journey. We only stopped there for a few hours, had a look at the city centre and then left with a train again. It was a good place to make a quick stop at because there were some things to see. But after walking through the old town we were quite happy to move on again.
Well, it is not entirely true that we saw all we wanted in these hours. Ake really wanted to visit
Heidelberg Thingstätte. But from the city centre it was quite a long walk to get there and that day Emma had a problem with her leg. The leg problem did not stop her from walking a bit in the city. But going on something that more resembled a hike than a little walk was not something she felt like doing. So Heidelberg Thingstätte we decided to leave for now and put on a list of places we might go to some other time.
Sites we did see in Heidelberg that are worth
Heidelberg city centre
It was a rainy day when we visited Heidelberg so the pictures lack colours mentioning here are
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Old Bridge Gate - a city gate on the end of an old bridge spanning the river Neckar which runs through Heidelberg.
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Heidelberg Castle - a large castle overlooking the city. We didn't visit this castle, we only saw it from a distance. On this trip we mainly skipped palaces and castles, since we would otherwise quickly get castle fatigue because almost every town and city in Germany has at least one castle and/or one palace. But maybe skipping the Heidelberg Castle was a mistake. Wikipedia describes it as a ruin and seeing the size of it we think it probably is quite spectacular.
Frankfurt am Main We used Frankfurt mainly as a travel hub and a place to stay when we visited other places nearby. But we did of course see a few things there as well.
In the financial district we walked by several shiny modern skyscrapers. One of those had a large Euro sign in front of it. We thought that it was the European Central Bank we walked by. But now when we have examined the pictures and compare them with photos we can find
Old Bridge Gate
Old Bridge Gate is a city gate on the end of an old bridge spanning the river Neckar on internet we think it was something else. Well, it is still a pretty good photo so it can stay on the blog.
Bacharach One of the places near Frankfurt we wanted to visit was the town
Bacharach. When we arrived there we felt that it was so pretty that it looked unreal. The town has narrow lanes lined with impossibly cute half-timbered houses. The entire town actually is so cute that we wouldn't be surprised if it's been used as a filming location.
Bacharach is not only a cute historical town, it also has bits and pieces of the old city wall left. It has not been properly maintained for maybe a century or more so it is in a bad shape. But some traces and fragments of a city wall is a lot more that what most cities have.
Steckeschääfer-Klamm From Bacharach we decided to go on a hike to a place called
Steckeschääfer-Klamm. It is a relatively large forested area with several trails running through it. The trails there are easily hiked and the bigger ones can even be biked.
The main reason for us
Heidelberg Castle
Heidelberg has a large castle, or rather a ruin of a castle, overlooking the city. to hike there was that we wanted to see the tree faces. In 50+ trees artists have carved out faces. It was really fun to walk through the forest and try to find all the tree faces.
Mainz When we returned back to Frankfurt am Main we passed through the city Mainz. We decided to make a quick stop and have a look around even though we didn't really know of anything we wanted to see. It was worth it because we did find a few things we found interesting.
About eight years ago we started to take pictures of the lights at pedestrian crossings, aka "the green man". Eventually we published all of those photos in a blog entry we called
Little Green Men. We keep adding pictures to that blog as we in our travels come to new places. In Germany we found quite a few different traffic lights that we have now added to that blog. In Trier we found traffic lights depicting Karl Marx and his wife. In Mainz we found light with the so called
Mainzelmännchen, characters from German TV.
In the cities Speyer, Worms and Mainz
Skyscraper
Shiny modern skyscrapers in the financial district of Frankfurt am Main there were Jewish communities that formed some kind of alliance known as ShUM. Some sites connected to this alliance have been declared a world heritage. In Mainz it was a Jewish cemetery that UNESCO has put on its World Heritage List. When we go there we found out that the cemetery can only be visited on guided tours most likely due to the risk of vandalism. It is sad to see that not even today can a Jewish heritage site be open to the public.
Friedberg In the late 1950-ies the musician Elvis Presley decided to join the military. For two years he was stationed in the 3rd Brigade 3rd Armored Division in
Friedberg just north of Frankfurt am Main. A square in Friedberg is today named Elvis Presley Platz and nearby the lights at the pedestrian crossings have pictures of Elvis instead of the usual "green man".
We visited Friedberg about half way through our trip in Germany. That means that we have plenty more to write about. But that we will write about in later blogs.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Germany explorations
You really are making us want to return to Germany. There are so many wonderful things to see.