Spesbach & Heidelberg, Germany (May 13-14, 2012)

After returning from France we enjoyed a restful Mother's Day while staying with Mike and Corri Palmer.  They live in Spesbach, Germany.  Here are a few pictures of homes in their neighborhood.  As we walked the neighborhood there were many out working on their homes.  Most are very particular about keeping everything very nice.

 

Above is a very interesting door, and to the right is a town house with half painted yellow and half painted white.  Red roofs and flowers are common.  Solar panels can be seen on many homes in Germany.

Heidelberg

Hal and Mike hiking up the trail to the castle.

With this picture and the one below you can see many different styles of architecture present in the castle.  Each generation, over centuries of time, would add to the castle, often in the predominant style at the time.  It makes for a very interesting combination.

The room at the left is inside the area behind where Diane and Hal are standing in the picture above.  Notice the doors on the right of the picture to the left.  One of these is shown below and is very ornate - a lot of craftsmanship is involved.  Similar doors were also in the inside of the rooms.

The door to the left has 1897 engraved in the panel above the door.  This one isn't as fancy as the one above, but look at the hinges and the lock.  A close-up of the lock is shown below.

This porcelain piece is actually a room heater.  A fireplace is located behind it (fed with wood through spaces between the walls so that the servants didn't disrupt the royal happenings) and the heat was disbursed through the porcelain.

The chapel inside the palace

                                                                    

                                                                                            This wine vat holds 55,000 liters.  It was reported that the wine was not very good.

A view out one of the lookout points of the castle.

This was the main entrance to the castle.  We entered through the back entrance and exited here.

Notice the large piece that has fallen off!

The picture below is looking down into an area between the outside wall and the castle.  During times of war this became a moat filled with water.  In peaceful times it was filled with animals which were hunted.

Here is a model of the castle as it once was.  The French came through the area and destroyed part of it in the 1800's.  It would have been quite a place before the destruction.

Another view outside.  The wall to the left of where we are standing is what drops down into the moat area - at least 60 feet.

A view of the old bridge from the castle.  Notice the large homes on the other side of the river.  More of these are shown below.  There were a lot of very nice homes on the north side of the river.

The Cathedral sits in the middle of the city center.

A funicular runs from the town below up to the castle and then further up the hillside.

Here are some pictures from the modern city of Heidelberg that give a good feel for the city.

This is the entrance to the old bridge that was shown above from the castle.   And below a picture from the bridge looking up at the castle on the hill.

We stopped to get some crepes made at this shop.

I even found an interesting sign on a business - with a little cover up help from my hand!

Tomorrow we visit Rothenberg ob der Taur - a medieval city that has been well preserved.