What Wikipedia has to say about Heidelberg.

(You can almost see Nee’s house in this shot!)

I still have a headache :S It’s cool though coz I can just flake out at Nee’s when I feel crook.

She left this morning for Italy – it’s Loris’s birthday. Happy birthday dude!

This means she will miss the big fireworks display which I lucked into. Three times a year they light up the castle and the Alte Brucke (old bridge) and it’s happening tomorrow night!

It’s called Schlossbeleuchtung (castle lighting):

“The show starts with the Heidelberg castle being lit up as though it is on fire. This is to remember the times in 1689, 1693 and 1764, when the castle went up in flames! After a few minutes of the castle ‘burning’, the fireworks begin. The fireworks are launched from the old bridge (which is obviously closed at this time) and last for about 15 minutes. The fireworks exploding over the old bridge with the castle looming in the background is really something to see.“

I did the walking tour of Heidelberg this morning. I take back what I said about walking sucking. I do like it. I just don’t like walking to the shops or something when I can ride, but walking to explore new places is cool. I get angry when I touch the bike now. I took the bike to a shop to try and get the back wheel fixed. The two guys don’t speak english so they basically ignored me. I left. Fsck them.

So now I’m searching the ‘net trying to find a bike shop. Enough of that. Bikes suck. My right knee is still stuffed. I gotta mess with the cleats or something. I noticed the saddle is bent to one side (I think from the SS Worlds in 03!) so this could be lowering my right-hand-side and causing the knee issues only on that side? That’s a vague guess. Could also be a twisted cleat position, but I haven’t adjusted these cleats for 5 years and they’ve never given me trouble before!? Stupid fscking bikes! I like watching other people ride bikes, especially all the Heidelberg hotties, but they are giving me the sh1ts!

Back to walking.. the tour this morning was pretty cool, not as good as the Berlin one but still had some interesting stuff pointed out to me that I’d walked past about 20 times!

Yesterday afternoon I walked up a hill, a BIG hill! The first part of the walk was pretty steep, up to Philosophenweg and I kept going to the top where I found an ampitheatre (built by the Nazis in 1935 using forced labor) and a monastery which was abandoned in 1500! There is a tombstone there with “1070” written on it! Apparently there is an annual “peace” party up here. Significant ground methinks, given the multitude of religions represented up here and the presence of the Nazi’s building..

Yeah, so that was 4hrs of hilly walking that my legs really thanked me for. I will go back up there tomorrow night in the hope of getting a good view of the castle lighting. Then all I have to do is make it back down in the dark without breaking my neck! That’s hard enough when I’m sober and in daylight! 😉

Vetter Brauhaus received my custom last night for dinner. Yes, after one day I have broken my beer ban.. well they do make the Strongest Beer in the World! “Vetter 33“:

“The Brauhaus Vetter brewpub in Heidelberg produces Vetter 33 (it’s original gravity is 33 Plato), a cloudy amber beer with a concentrated malt nose, huge and very rich clean malt flavor, high alcohol (11 percent by volume) and a very long sweet malt aftertaste. It is available on at the brewpub.“

from: www.allaboutbeer.com

also: http://www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/hessbrew.htm

But more often, it’s just stupid people like me doing them!

Along with crappy signage, Germany doesn’t have street lighting between towns.

It seems they also lucked out when it came to moonlight or starlight – a stark contrast to Mildura’s wonderfully bright night skies.

What does this mean?

It means that I was riding from Mannheim back to Heidelberg last night in pitch darkness!

In actual fact, my healthy dose of paranoia had led me to pack my lights, but due to the handle bar bag, the S-SUN’s mounting position meant it was only useful for being seen (maybe) and not for seeing with.

I stuck to the roads, mostly, because I could at least steer along the white lines!

Some bikepath descents were “interesting”:

“Is that path or is that a gully?”

“Is that path or is that a shrub?”

“Where’d the path go?!”

“Is this a smooth edge or a wheel-wrecking gutter?”

I made it home alive, but not before riding past a downed cyclist surrounded by cars, people and flashing lights. Thanks for rubbing it in! He was alive, btw.

I was supposed to go to Cologne today with Renee but I woke up this morning with a killer headache! I drank more water than usual yesterday (it’s been over 30degC for the last few days!) but I guess it wasn’t enough? It could also be a lack of salts or, more likely, the fact I gave up caffeine yesterday – not a single coffee, iced coffee, chocolate.. nothing! Not even a beer! What a sad life.. 😛

After dropping Loris off at Frankfurt Hahn airport, Renee and I noted that we were very close to the world famous Waldgeist-Hofheim schnitzel restaurant.

You may have seen this place and its killer meals in a email forward at some stage. It’s all true!!!

I met Gary (from Wellington, NZ) in Nuremberg’s “Lette’em Sleep” hostel and I stole a section of his latest report because it applies to me also (if you mind dude, let me know):

Since the last report, I’ve done a day trip to a little place called Bamberg. Claim to fame is that it’s one of the most beautiful towns in Germany and that it also has about 200 different beers! As it happens, when I was there they were setting up for a big beer festival. No, I didn’t go back for it before anyone asks 🙂

While I was in N?rnberg I visited the museum about the rise and fall of the nazis. Very interesting museum. Thought they might have been kind to them selves on the subject but they told the whole story. They pulled no punches. Parts of it were quite graphic. It’s in one of the buildings that was used by the nazis as well. Worth a visit.

Ja, so that’s what I did also. The museum was the Reichstagsomethingsomethingsomethingdokumentationzentrum..

Prior to that we had some adventures with Jayne “the dodgy saffa girl who lost her wallet in Nuremburg” (her own words), who actually lives quite close to where I’m staying in London – you up for some more beers?, Vince from Bendigo, who is going to do well in the Commonwealth Games trials for Decathlon, so long as he doesn’t try to match Gary or I when out drinking, and Carly from Sydney who will be doing some speech pathology, also in London.

We went to “Landbierparadies” (It WAS a beer paradise!) far too often, because I wanted to make my way down the entire list of microbrew beers and the food was traditional, good and cheap. Very cool place but please.. CAN I HAVE A NIGHT OFF! 😛

Also went to the watch museum with Gary (who happens to be a watch repairer). The watch was invented here in Nuremberg. Bet you didn’t know that!

On the first day I did the LPG walking tour (basically) and saw all the sights. Toured the dungeons under the Rathaus (town hall). I’d much rather be incarcerated nowadays thankyou very much!! (Probably will too..)

Met an Italian guy who plays a Scacciapensieri (funky sounding plucked mouth instrument) and a Spanish guy who travels with the “Go” board game. I want to learn how to play these two things.. after the bongos that is.

It’s amazing how peaceful the town becomes after 5pm when the tour buses clear out, taking the hordes with them. I recall having a “moment” on one of the bridges with the water falling nearby. A really beautiful town, Nuremburg.