Heidelberg with a Hangover - Germany

Back in September, I had crashed on the couch at Anna and Steve's after dinner and a few too many drinks. After far too little sleep, Anna woke me up at 7.30am and asked if I wanted to go to Heidelberg with her - she needed to go back to her university to return a library book and pick up a few others.

motorway out of Luxembourg

Of course I hate saying no to anything, and so I stumbled downstairs to the car. The German border is only 25km, or about 20 minutes drive, and that early in the morning the roads where clear and there was a beautiful view of the sun rising above the fog filled valleys. In typical German fashion, once we got over the border Anna accelerated from 130km p/h up to 170km - I checked the dashboard just out of curiosity, making her worried that I was scared at going so fast. Despite my best intentions to keep Anna company on the drive, tiredness and the remanents of alcohol in my system soon kicked in and I was out to it for most of the 240km journey, only waking up as we drove into the city.

Heidelberg castle above a square

Anna disappeared off to the library, and I went exploring. About 150 000 people live in Heidelberg, but it is pretty well known because of it's university, American army base, and as a tourist destination because of it's castle and old town. It has a ridiculously long main street, 2km long, with the river running parallel a couple of hundred metres away on one side, and tree-covered hills a couple of hundred metres away on the other side. A huge castle ruin dating back to the 1300s sits on the hills overlooking the town. The city is really quite pretty, there are a lot of beautiful old buildings, including the university - studying there would be awesome after Victoria's blah Kelburn Campus!

Heidelberg during the Heidelberger Herbst

I was really suffering from the effects of the preceeding night, so I spent a bit of time just wandering around finding decent coffee and a bretzel and trying to recover a little. I was a little bit of a mess wearing last night's makeup and a crumpled dress with fajita's spilt down the front, but I was determined to see a bit of the city so as a brilliant sun came out I set off down the main road, only to find that the Heidelberger Herbst, or Old Town Autumn Festival was on, so the street was full of stands selling crafts and produce and stages with performances going on.

Heidelberg during the Heidelberger Herbst

Like any good German festival, beer tents were littered about the place and both young and old people were already holding steins of beer at that early hour in the morning - just looking at them worsened my hangover! I spent a couple of hours wandering through doing some Christmas shopping, and passed two traditional bands heading down the street, complete with costumes, brass instruments, drummers and big flag wavers.

Medieval fair in Heidelberg

Eventually I ended up finding the Medieval Fair in the middle of the festival. I remember once at primary school we studied the medieval times, and we re-enacted a medieval feast, with all of us dressing up and eating a roasted pig, it's head displayed with an apple in its mouth. This was like watching that scene come to life! The stands were made in the wooden framework style or old-fashioned tents, everyone was wearing real medieval clothes, kids were playing medieval games and running around with wooden swords, and you could buy pig off the spit or tea in a handmade clay mug.

Schneeballen

I finished my walk along the street, seeing several squares filled with people drinking to live bands playing traditional music, tourists eating 1/2m long bratwurst, and a huge church. I also discovered Schneeballen, balls made of pieces of dough that are deep fried. Traditionally they are just dusted with sugar, but you can also get them filled with, coated in and dipped in all sorts of things, like nougat, marzipan, caramel, pistachio and chocolate. I should have suggested the look into a speculoos filling! It took me forever to decide which one to try myself!

Pig on the spit, medieval fair

Finally, it was lunchtime, so I met Anna and we ate some Feuerwurst, spicy sausages in bread sitting in a square, and then we went to the local supermarket to load up on food (its much cheaper in Germany than Luxembourg) and then to another to get beer for Steve. Anna doesn't know much about beer, and I'm pretty useless and reading beer labels in German, so we made complete asses out of ourselves trying to work out what we were doing, but we ended up getting a huge crate full of different German beers for ridiculously cheap - another reason to love Germany! And then it was home time.

I quite liked Heidelberg, it would be good to go back with more time and check out the castle and take in the atmosphere when it's more relaxed, and when I'm not struggling to stay upright! Big thanks to Anna for taking me there!

More photos from Heidelberg are here.