Auf Wiedersehen Germary As We Prepare to Ausfardt

We arrived at our 4th and final "hotel" for our final two nights on Monday and checked into the Schloss Hirschhorn Hotel.  We have determined that Burg is a Castle and a Schloss is a "fancy" castle!  Whatever, staying in an old creepy place on a mountain-side in Germany is no different than staying in a creeping old building anywhere in the world.  Creepy and OLD! 

Now having said that, Germany is B E A U T I F U L!  The landscape is breathtaking in this area of Germany, so mountainous, tons of fall color, and lovely rivers twisting and turning their way through farmlands and villages dotting their banks.

When we arrived at the Schloss Hirschhorn, winding our way up a teeny-tiny road that we would NEVER have found if we didn't have a GPS, to find nobody home!  Literally.  The front door was locked and peeking through to the front desk we saw no one.  Hmmmmmm.  There's a sign though that says if no one is around press here.  So we did.  Shortly an oversized huffing and puffing woman showed up, speaking NO English, and proceeded to try to find our reservation.  Nein! No reservation!  After much ado, she found our reservation and placed a call to someone else who finally showed up with wet hair but speaking English.  Whew!  She was very sweet and very apologetic.  Apparently Monday, the day we showed up, is like a Sunday everywhere else.....shops and businesses are closed, something we figured out after visiting Bad Wimpfy earlier in the day.  More to follow on that.  Long story short, we were escorted up a winding staircase and presented to a very large room with spectacular views of the Neckar River, a private bath and more funky bedding!  But she redeemed the "Schloss" when she brought up a bottle of champagne...which we didn't drink.

The view from our Schloss room!

The twisty turny stairway

Our little car on the right heading down from the old castle hotel

Part of the castle wall

We settled in, and, after 2 days of NO internet, we finally DID have internet and checked in with our girls, email and Facebook.  Then we walked "downtown" (remember it's Monday and we had to walk about a thousand steps down, down, down) and found the only restaurant in town that was open.....Kartofflehaus, which means potato house.  Everything was made with potatoes.  Now that may sound good to you but after a week of meat and potatoes....not that good!  Food here is NOT GOOD.  I was told that by my friends Troy and Linda but I thought "how bad can good sausages be?"  Not bad but BORING!  and the whole thing with the cold cuts is just, okay I know I use this word too much with regard to food in Germany, but WEIRD!  

The tiny town of Hirschhorn

On our way to the potato house!

ANYWAY, we went into the Kartofflehaus and, once again, it was immaculately clean and very, very nice and we were greeted by a beautiful young woman who was eager to speak her very basic English and explain EVERYTHING on the menu in detail.  Wow.  Gordon chose some sort of spaghetti with innards of an animal and I ordered a vegetarian dish of what seemed like potato latke's with shredded veggies and topped with more shredded cooked veggies and we both ordered a salad.  Gordon's pasta was in a white sauce with shrimp (not his favorite) and mine was coated with cheese.  Again, white sauces and cheese may sound good to you but Gordon and I don't really eat white sauces and for me, I don't really like a dish covered with melted cheese.  It was a little tasty but..........the salad was great!  Anyway, hoofing it back up the thousand or so stairs we had to climb back up (in the pitch black now by the way) was a welcome relief but really, we've had enough of the German food.

The astronomical Clock!

Our first view of the Neckar River from Heilbronn.

Back to earlier in the day.  We stopped two times on our way to Hirschhorn.  Our first stop was Heilbronn to take in a huge astronomical clock which was cool and ended up in a huge shopping "mall" that sold everything from furs to food!  We were poking around the food markets, something we always try to do while touring foreign countries, and saw this couple buying a roll with a slice of meat and mustard.  Ummmmm, looks good....shall we try it?  Okay.  The serving gal doesn't speak English but through a series of grunts and hand motions and a lot of loud talking we manage to tell her we want ONE of what they have cut in half.  Turns out it was a hot dog on a roll only a flat log-like piece of meat instead of a round "hot dog".  Live and learn.  Anyway, we started shopping knives and bought two very nice and high quality Henkel knives.  We were originally going to buy a cuckoo clock but this seemed more practical!

Our next stop was an adorable town called Bad Wimpfy.  It was like Diagon Alley from Harry Potter but everything was closed.  Still it was a lovely walk around another charming village.

Diagon Alley in Bad Wimpfy!  Higgelty-piggilty or what?

Another cute little triangular home in Bad Wimpfy.

After a fit-full night's sleep on my part - must have had something to do with the nice gal that took us to our room and told us there was a ghost (didn't help that just as I was about to drop off, you know that "almost sleep" we get into?  the ice in the ice bucket with the champagne we didn't drink, happened to shift and make a really loud noise and set me back into wakefulness.  That's what Ambien is for!) we got up to a nice breakfast of boiled eggs, white toast (ugh) yogurt and awesome coffee.  Gordon tried to replenish his SIM card, I checked us in for our flights on Wednesday and ordered our groceries for the remainder of our trip and then we headed out to visit Heidelberg a fabulous medievel town along the Neckar River - a young university village with a vibrant old town.

The first view of Heidelberg Palace from below in the little village

And the little village from the Palace

Looking down the Neckar toward Hirschhorn about 1/2 hour away.

The large cathedral in Heidelberg

A small cask?

That's me on the top right of a wine cask that took 5 oak trees to build inside the Heidelberg Palace!  Alas.....it's empty!

Go figure!

The loooooong cobbled shopping village in Heidelberg

River tour boats cruising and a RiverCruise shipped docked.

Panoramic!

One of the many locks on the River Neckar.

AND we found real food!  Real yummy food!  Something with flavor and vegetables!  Thai food!  We ate a late lunch/early dinner of vegetarian curries with rice - I grabbed a gelato later and Gordon bought a piece of lemo-curd like cake!  Okay we were slightly bad but we've had no other meals today except breakfast and our Thai lunch. 

We toured the Heidelberg Palace, took a ride on a funicular and walked and walked the cobbled streets of Heidelberg and out onto the original bridge into the old town crossing the Neckar.  We poked in shops, photographed churches and buildings and river banks.  And then, late afternoon, we bought a bottle of wine and headed back to our room to relax, shower, pack and try to watch last nights debate - successful on almost all counts except the debate. We'll watch tomorrow night in the UK.

We are off early tomorrow morning to drive the hour and one half to Frankfurt and a return to our second home before heading back to paradise in California next week.  We so miss our girls and our home and our wonderful weather and lifestyle in Pleasanton.  BUT we come away from Germany understanding that there are greater possibilities for our own country.  Healthcare, solar, trains, better freeways and infrastructure....it's all possible but we need to unite as a Nation! 

Auf Wiedersehen Germany!