Heidelberg

It’s currently about 10:30 in Germany and we are sitting at an Internet Café in the train station, waiting for our train. We are taking an overnight train to Prague- it is close to an 11 hour train ride. We paid about $50 to get beds- we figured it is cheaper than a hotel and will allow us to actually get some sleep. We’re excited and anxious to see how the overnight trains work- hopefully we get a good nights sleep. There could be up to four other people in our cabin so it could be tight.

This morning we woke up in Baden-Baden, had breakfast at the hotel, and checked our bags with the front desk. We then went to the ‘fun” bathhouse. We paid for our tickets, changed into our suits, and then entered the bath. The first floor had a lazy river, indoor/outdoor pools, heat lamps, a cold plunge, a aromatherapy steamroom, a waterfall you could stand under, etc. The second floor was nude and had foot baths, Jacuzzis, saunas, etc. The average age of the place was about 65 so we saw a lot of saggy boobs. It was fun, but not nearly as relaxing as the one we went to yesterday. Also, you were free to go where you wanted to, compared to yesterday where we had a routine. We liked having a routine; it gave some rhyme and reason to what we were doing. We left about 1:00 and had lunch at the Baden-Baden train stop.

We then took the train to Heidelberg, which is only about an hour away. Heidelberg is a big college town. I was excited about Heidelberg- there's a restaurant in Columbia, our college town, called Heidelberg- but we did very little research on the town and weren’t sure what to do. We got a map and some information from the tourist center and then headed off into the old town. There are lots of shops and restaurants on the cobblestone streets. We shopped for awhile (Kaydee, I got you something I think you’ll like…) and then headed across the river that divides the town. They have a steep hike to a lookout point over the town. It was pretty, but we are becoming a little bit of view snobs- we have seen so many pretty views lately that it is becoming hard to impress us.

After that we went back to the Old Town and did a little self-guided pub crawl. We went to several local places, including Hard Rock Café, and just got one drink at each place. We had dinner at a little Irish Pub. It was a good time, but definitely would have been better if we had done our research beforehand.

So, sort of a boring day. We have two days in Prague and then three days in Berlin, and then back to Kansas City! I read about the Air France flight last night- haven’t really been following the news- and am a little freaked out about flying internationally. That’s scary stuff. More tomorrow!