Day 5 - Mainz/Heidelberg
(Take 2: hopefully with the photos this time. sorry about that, I blame the ship's internet)
Another day with difficult decisions. We docked in Mainz in the wee hours of the morning (only caused Nick to stir slightly) and had two options for after breakfast: tour Mainz, specifically the Gutenberg museum, or diverge to Heidelberg to see the castle and the Christmas markets.
We decided to go with the longer (and arguably more us) outing of touring Heidelberg Castle. What we did not realize was that this outing required a considerable bus ride to get there (1-1.5 hours), during which our tour guide narrated everything. I enjoyed it, Nick enjoyed it a little less (as usual).
The Heidelberg Castle tour was really cool! Basically just royals building palaces for themselves or their wives, then knocking it down and doing it all over again and again. The local sandstone is rich in iron oxide, so all of the sandstone used for the castle (and most of the town below) has a really nice reddish hue to it. We also saw the world's largest wine barrel! There was some restoration work happening to it so it wasn't a great picture, but it was pretty huge.
After the castle tour there was a walking tour of the historic town area which is down the hill from the castle. BUT a few people from our group decided to leave and join another group or something and did not tell any of the guides, so our bus had to sit for a while to wait for them to return/be located. With that happening, Nick and I hatched the plan to instead of waiting for the bus to drive us down, to take the funicular! (For anyone who doesn't know, a funicular is basically a mix between a cable car and a train and built specifically for steep slopes.)
With the blessing of our chatty tour guide, we diverged from the group and walked the half block to the entrance of the funicular and took it down to the main city center. We then walked the Christmas Markets, got our complementary gluhwein and lunch from a stand (cheese and mushroom and cheese and ham hand pies - SO GOOD), and walked around some more. And legend has it our bus is still waiting at the top of the hill... (just kidding)
We still had plenty of time, and had only taken one leg of the funicular, so we decided to ride it again!! The southern leg (which we took earlier in the day) is modern and acts as the main transport between the lower city center and Heidelberg Castle, whereas the northern leg is a historic car and only takes folks to a look out point, some walking paths, and a hotel. The northern leg is all wood and very creaky, especially up the 40% grade towards the top of the run. It's basically like the train you road at the wedding, just sideways. Here are some views.
After that we did another lap down the main shops alley that joined all of the markets before we ran out of time and had to return to the bus's rendezvous spot to return to the ship.
Nick has been handling the FAQs so far, but I'll give them a shot. There are all questions I am assuming you want to know
How many more stops are there
great question! I think two. Tomorrow is Strasbourg (France, so passports are required!) to another huge Christmas market hub, then a stop the following day to to see the black forest (find our where the ham and cake comes from!!) I guess there is a third stop, but that's just for us to get off the ship.
How many gluhwein mugs do you have
currently seven sets of two. All markets after Koln had a single mug design for all markets in that City, so our accumulation rate has dropped significantly. We today experienced our first "deposit" (getting money back for returning a mug).
how is the ship
very nice!! we'll maybe do a separate post about the ship later, if people want our review.
well that's about it for today
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