Day 11 - Our last day on the Tour, Heidelberg then on to Offenbach (Frankfurt)

Today after breakfast we watched a Cuckoo Clock demonstration at the hotel. Very interesting but it did not compel us to buy a clock and ship it home.  :-) 

It was about 4 hours to Heidelberg so we did make at least one coffee stop along the way. Of course we all had to 'pay to pee'. I am going to rant, so feel free to skip to the next paragraph. Between June and I we had 70cents, many P2P places are 50 cents, so June headed to the rest room...nope it is 100 cents (1 Euro). So I bought a coffee, gave her the change....all is good. I finish my coffee, take what change I have and head for the restroom, I had 90 cents and I can't get change because the line at the cash register is about 10 people deep. I literally went around our group begging for 10 cents, thank you Lisa. I am just saying this is a bunch of BS. The Germans ought to be really proud of this process...it is stupid (For any Germans reading this, I am just saying what every other foreigner is thinking). EV owners have range anxiety, in Germany us foreigners have change anxiety, the fear that you won't have enough to P. End of rant.

We arrived in Heidelberg around 1PM, it was quite warm but a beautiful day. Vanessa gave us the typical orientation tour and then set us free to explore and find our own lunch. 

Heidelberg is one of the warmest locations in Germany allowing it to grow tropical fruits and palm trees can be seen along the river. 

As we walked to the center of old town, the ruins of Heidelberg Castle come into view. This is an old castle with construction starting before 1200 and as late as the 1600s.  We kind of wanted to hike up but we decided to take our time to tour the old town itself. 

We walked down to see the The Karl Theodor Bridge (Old Bridge) which crosses the Neckar River and connects old town with the new town.  It was built in 1788 and is still beautiful today.  The views from the bridge are pretty sweet. 

As you approach the bridge you can see the bronze Heidelberg Bridge Monkey, he is holding a mirror that is supposed to make one self reflect.  I don't think June likes what she sees. 

This picture is as you leave the bridge and head into old town. 

We wandered back up into the old town and stopped at a chocolate shop recommended by Vanessa. The shop has fun story about how the chocolate enabled students to express their affection. The story can be read here:

Studentenkusse 

Of course we found Vanessa still in the chocolate shop.

We walked around a bit more and found a nice place in the center of town for Pizza and Beer...

Sadly, we had to head back to the bus and head for our hotel. We left a lot of Heidelberg yet to be explored, maybe next time. 

We got back to our pickup location and Attila was there waiting for us.  Without exaggeration, Attila was a very skilled driver, he was able to maneuver our bus in places that you would never think it could go and always seemed to do it without making the passengers panic. 

We appreciated Atilla, not only was he a good driver he was a very nice man. 

We arrived back at our hotel about 4:30PM and had some downtime before we got together for our final group dinner.  

We had dinner outside of Frankfurt at Käsmühle am Bieberbach, it reminded me of a typical Vermont Brewery setting. I asked for some Octoberfest Beer and they said sorry we will not have it until next week. Bummer.

As we left there was a nice sunset, kind of fitting. 

We returned to the hotel and said our goodbyes to those that had very early departures tomorrow. A fair number of us got drinks and gathered outside on the patio, reminisced about our trip and exchanged contact info etc..   

Here is a picture of our group taken in the center of the walled city of Rothenberg.

So this portion of our trip is wrapping up, tomorrow we pick up a car at the airport and will set out for the next week on our own...It is going to be a bit scary without Vanessa to hold our hand and Atilla to chauffer us about....but we will manage.