Heidelberg

Heidelberg--July 13

The old capital of the Palatinate (a German region stretching in pieces from the North Sea to Bavaria.)

What a beautiful old city. A walk down the old town reveals many narrow alleys with balconied apartments, staring carved stone faces and gargoyles in every tiny crevice, sidewalk tables in front of countess little storefront cafes.

A giant once-Catholic, now Protestant church.

One of the oldest, continuously operating universities in Europe (founded 1386 AD)

On Friday afternoon, July 13, we came into town and found our hotel, the Leonardo. Later, as we strolled down into the old town, the place was packed with people. It is tourist season, but this crowd was extraordinary, it seemed. As we neared the church and Marktplatz, the situation became obvious. There was a classic car festival of some sort going on. And, what cars! See some of them in the photos.

The definition of incongruous: the ancient city, market place, cobblestones, and castle—and a whole collection of really nice, really classic, really expensive cars. They were sort of “on parade”, doing some kind of rally through town, across the bridge, down those narrow, windy streets. What fun.

There was not much for us to do except stroll through the cars and take pictures. That was what was going in Heidelberg!  We did walk down to the Neckar River and the big gate on the bridge that used to be the north entrance to the city.

Entering Old Town . . . lots of people for a Friday night.

Classic cars! Jaguars.

Mercedes!

Another Jag.

And yet another Jag.

And another. Must be a European things.

The car I fell in love with in 1974. Datsun 240Z.

The castle visible from town.

Our first glimpse of Schneeballen (the round things at center-right.)

This castle towers over the town.

The Neckar River and the Middle Bridge.

The City Gate on the city side of the bridge.

The gate from halfway across the bridge.

Then wooden bridge and stone pillars

Multiple times by high water and battles destroyed

Extreme high levels

Sculptures of Athena and the Elector surrounded by water deities

Blasting by the Wehrmacht

Inauguration of the latest production

A Russian street band--they were great! There is street music on every corner of Europe, it seems.

A little touch of home . . . obviously there is a good sense of "Mexican" food at this fine establishment.

This is the size of a schneeballen.