We had a great weekend with my aunt who lives in Mannheim, the city I was born in. Mannheim is about an hour drive from Frankfurt. The girls were impressed that from the Autobahn we started seeing one castle after another in the hills to our left. I remembered climbing to many of these castles as a child when on fieldtrips with my school. Saturday the weather continued to rain, but Sunday the clouds broke apart and the sun shone through.

On Saturday, we headed into Heidelberg, which is only a 20 minute ride from Mannheim. We took a funicular to the castle and wondered around in the courtyard, saw the world’s biggest wine barrel, and the world famous view from the castle across the Neckar river into the valley over the Heiliggeist Kirche.

 

We even saw the door knob where, according to a legend, a witch bit into. The legend furthermore says that whoever bites through the iron door knob would get the castle as a present. That witch wanted the castle bad and tried to bite through it. Unsuccessful, but the imprint stayed so that you can still see it today!  According to Sagen und Legenden:

Ein starkes Tor verschließt den Eingang zum Schlosshof in Heidelberg. Durch ein kleines Durchschlupfpförtchen ließ man in kriegerischen Zeiten die Boten aus und ein. An diesem eisernen Pförtchen hängt ein schwerer, eiserner Ring. Er diente früher als Türklopfer.

Wer diesen Ring durchbeißt, bekommt das Schloss geschenkt, so meldet die Sage. Viele haben dies schon versucht; aber keinem ist es gelungen. Eine Hexe wäre auch gerne Besitzerin des Schlosses geworden und probierte die Kraft ihrer Zähne an dem dicken Eisen. Allein es widerstand. Nur ein kleiner Riss ist an dem Ring zurückgeblieben. Dieser Riss im Ring wird seit der Zeit Hexenbiss genannt.

 

On our way back down, we could not resist to stop in on of the bakeries and have a fresh Bretzel with butter. These bakeries are one of the few things I miss about Germany in Argentina or the USA.

 

On Sunday we drove to Waldkatzenbach, where my grandmother used to live. It is a beautiful drive through the Neckar valley, passing four castles and cities from the middle ages located on top of the mountains. Waldkatzenbach is located at the foot of the “Katzenbuckel”, the highest elevation in the Odenwald. We parked the car in front of my grandmother’s old house and started walking into the forest.

 

Although the girls and I are not used to walking very much in America and they were worried about “wandern” (hiking) for two hours in the woods, it was an incredible experience to walk in their grandmother’s footsteps. She any many others of our familiy had made the hike to the “Alte Muehle” (Old Mill), which was also our destination.

   

We never saw another soul while we were walking through the forest. What a difference to the flat landscape and pines we are used to in Florida. Seeing wild forerst strawberries, blueberries and boisenberries was great, but being able to still taste the rasberries along the way, made the walk seem a lot shorter. The photo of the basket of rasberries was one of four (!!) we bought on the road side on our way back and ate (all four !!!). Unanimously we voted that they were the most delicious rasberries we ever tasted.

 

Once we arrived at the Alte Muehle, we were greeted by a few cows resting on the meadow. We had a delicious lunch at the restaurant. 

 

 

The girls had fun playing on the meadow afterwards and picking apples of the ground then throwing them into the stream, running down and waiting for them to go throught the water mill and catching them on the other side.

 

 

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