Heidelberg Schloss

Saturday the family took an outing to see The Heidelberg Castle (Schloss).  It was fabulous and the children behaved wonderfully!

We started the day off packing light- which when you have 4 children it is a challenge!

We decided to take public transportation - try it out!  Well, it was good and bad - our first time out...we learned lots!

Lesson 1: Take LOTS of euro coins!  Euro bills are good - but anything under 5 Euros is a coin - and they are needed for the StreetCars or Straßenbahn.  We started off taking a taxi to Kirchheim (sounds like keersh-hime).  This is a small town, I guess you would say, w/in Heidelberg.  It's kind of like when you say you are from "Atlanta", but you really live in Cumming or Five Points, but it is easier to say Atlanta.

Anyhow, From Kirchheim we took a Straßenbahn (sounds like strawzenbahn), this was good - but it was a huge challenge to figure out the machine to buy our tickets.  It was only in German and Don studied it a bit before we left - and thought he had it down.  BUT...when you have a line behind you and there is a 12 year old German boy looking at you like you are a doofus - well, the pressure is on! :) LOL  So he got the tickets!  6 of them!

Lesson 2: all children under 14 ride free - if they are with their parents... not to expensive of a mistake - but made none-the-less :)

Thankfully, I have riden public transportation before and it IS similar here as it is in the States - just in German.  We new what our stop was so the Kids helped and counted our stops.

We stopped and got off at the Bismarckplatz in the Altstandt (Old Town)... you can see a few pix on the Page Titled Trip to Heidelberg Schloss.  It was a good little walk for us (thankfully we decided to bring the sit/stand stroller for the wee ones)!  There were a lot of shops and even a little Markplatz (this is a little market place).  I wish we would have stayed a bit and lingered in the MarKplatz, but we had a mission, and that was not part of it.  Next time...

We decided to not take the 300 stairs leading to the Schloss, but to take the tram up the mountain.  So glad we did... my foot is still tired by end of the day and the babies had not napped.  We took a tour and learned a few interesting facts about the history of the castle and of Heidelberg, the kids were bored, but they did great!   Evan had the camera for much of the excursion and Emma for a bit too- so most of the pix are from their point of view - but I think they did great!

There is a lot of beautiful architecture to the castle and part of it was destroyed by war and I think Don said lightening.  There was a tower that was the dungeon and the green grass is where the mote was located.  Inside it still had much of the ornate wood carvings which was fabulous!  The date above one of the doors was MCM - which is 1900, so much was added over the years.  On the outside of the castle, inside the courtyard, the walls are decorated w/ statues that have been replaced w/ replicas, most of the originals were destroyed in war, but are now displayed inside the halls and in the chapel, some had arms blown off or holes right through them!

We were all very tired on the way back, but the kids enjoyed seeing and listening to the various corner "street performers" for lack of a better term.  Some were very good and played beautifully!

After arriving at the Straßenbahn for our return trip we called the taxi service and found out we had missed the 4:30 pick up and the next one would not arrive until 7:30pm!  Yikes!  That was over 2 1/2 hours away and we only had about 15 minutes of riding on the Straßenbahn!  So over the trip back we pondered how in the world we would get from Kirchheim back to PHV (Patrick Henry Village - where we live).  We didn't REALLY even know where Kirchheim was in relation to our home - and we didn't have a detailed enough map to tell us.  SO...we decided to get off at a location we were familiar with and WALK...

Emma and Evan HATED the idea!  WALK!?!?!  What do you mean walk!?!?!  We have been walking ALL day!  Well, once they realized that we were not joking and they really did not have any choice but to pick up their little feet and move - they did and Evan even ended up making a little adventure out of it.  Mind you - it was about a 3KM walk (about 1.9miles).  Took us about an hour w/ all four... We were home well before the original 730 pick up and even had baths done before that time! 
Lesson 3: know where you are better and have a map that has more detail!  We found out later that had we stayed on the Street car and taken it to the end of the line we would have been about 1/2 mile from home!  Yikes!  Also realized we could have picked up a bus, for no extra cost and gotten even closer! :) Won't share that one w/ the kids - for a while anyway!  HA!

Needless to say, the kids slept well and it took them about 2 days to get over the sleepiness! :)

It was a great little trip and we learned a lot from our mistakes... more to happen I am sure!