Heidelberg - Day Three

Today (Saturday) was a day of walking. It was the last official day of the RISE Scholars conference in Heidelberg, and most of the students checked out of the hostel and got ready to leave. As our closing activity we partook in guided tours of the castle complex and the old-town of Heidelberg. It was really interesting, but it involved a lot of walking. After the tours got over and everyone said their goodbyes, a group of us (including Graham, Chris, and Melissa, as well as two or three others) decided to hike up the hill opposite of the castle and visit the old ruins.

While this involved even more walking, it made for a nice hike through the woods, and the ruins were incredible. The hill, considered for thousands of years to be holy ground, was first inhabited by a Celtic settlement before it was forested. At some point the Romans and the early Germans both possessed the hill for a time, and so it is now the site of ruins from two different monasteries, one of which has an old Roman chapel, and the other has a tall watch tower (it was told to us that on cloud-less days it is possible to see the spires of Strasbourg 150km away; it gave me some vertigo issues to say the least). Between the two sets of monetary ruins, the Nazis built this giant amphitheater as a publicity and propaganda tool. Apparently it wasn't used all that much, it it still looks really impressive.

After working our way back down the mountain, I sat in my hostel room for a while and watched the elephants next door. At some point someone thought it was a good idea to build a zoo and a student hostel next to each other. I really couldn't complain, and I took some photos of the Zebras, too. After that Graham and I went and had dinner at McDonald's, only so that we could say that we had. There was also some sort of summer ceremony that involved firing lots of fireworks from the castle and the old stone bridge. It was really interesting because the lights they used to illuminate the castle during the show made it look like it was on fire, and I have to admit, I was rather concerned at first. That was fun to watch. A group of students hiked up the mountain and stood on the old tower to watch the show. Apparently it was extra cool because they had to look down at the low-aimed fireworks (our guess was that the city wanted to keep them above the river water).

[Editor's Note: I have since been informed that the festival we saw in Heidelberg was the "Lighting of the Castle" ceremony which reenacts the original burning of the castle. This explains why it looked like the castle was on fire.]

Graham and I are planning on renting a couple of bikes tomorrow and then heading down the River Neckar until we hit the Rhine. Hopefully the two actually connect and it won't be that far of a trip. But I have no other plans for tomorrow (Sunday), so we will both bring lunch for our trip.

So with that said, "That tower is how old?!".