Germany Part 3

One of my favorite places in Europe is Heidelberg and I was lucky enough to go back a second time. I am not alone here as it was a favorite haunt of Victor Hugo and Mark Twain and today is a huge tourist area. It is an awesome college town that is overlooked by the beautiful Schloss Castle on the hill.

This Gothic/Renaissance style castle was first built around 1300. Through the years it has suffered through fires, wars and arguing royal families.

Behind us in this photo, you can see how half the tower has been blown off by an explosion and still lies there, upside down, supporting the moss.
I took a ton of pictures there but I will but up my favorites here.

The castle ground were lovely but the weather was awful. We spent most of the day tramping about in 3 inches of very cold slush.






Here are a few views of Heidelberg from the front of the castle.



OK, so there is a little story about this footprint in the ground. As the legend goes, one day the King decided to take his buddies out for a little hunting excursion. While he was gone the Queen decided she would have a little excursion of her own, in her bedroom with one of the knights. So, as always the inevitable happens, and the King returns home early to find his Queen, uh, occupied. The Knight takes a leap from her 6th floor bedroom window and lands here on the concrete with one foot. With his second leap he launches himself down the side of the hill and disappears into the village. From then on, no man was able to visit the castle without first measuring his own foot to the footprint as the King searched for the scoundrel knight.

Look at this little face...she was such a trooper that day.

We did take the tour which took us inside the castle, although not much of it is open to visitors and the parts which are were very sparsely furnished.


So, one of the biggest attractions at this castle is the Grosses Fass (Great Vat) built in the 18th century to hold the King's wine. The King actually accepted wine as payment of taxes just to keep the thing full. I guess he got in a pissing contest of sorts with another King, you know, one of those "mine is bigger than yours" argument that has plagued mankind for like, forever. My pictures of the big one are all very dark so I will show you a picture of the SMALL one.

So here is my last castle story. One day, drunk on wine I suspect, the King declared that he would GIVE the castle to anyone who was able to bite through the door handle. Apparently, men came in droves from far and wide to test the strength of their jaw. No man was able to even make a dent. Finally, the local witch thought she would give it a go.

She came very close.