Heidelberg – Sunday, July 29th

Our only full day in Germany and it’s raining. Come to think of it, the last time Ann was in Heidelberg (in the 80s with Karen Tovar Norwood) it was raining, too! We didn’t rush out of the hotel, took our time and had the free continental breakfast in the concierge room. Our first stop was Heidelberg Castle… We drove over to the main tourist parking garage then headed up the hill to the castle. We were about 10 steps up the long stairs when Jamie, running ahead, slips and falls and starts screaming. She looks around at us and we think “SH$%” she’s broken her nose.
The nose appears to be crooked (the skin is kind of smashed off toward the side), there is about an inch long abrasion diagonally across the nose and it’s bleeding outside and in… Jim immediately starts poking it on both sides, to see if he can feel whether it’s broken. She’s still crying, we head back to the parking garage to ask about a doctor, hospital, etc. Of course our timing is terrible, it’s a Sunday and everything is closed. The garage attendant tells us there is a restaurant in the bottom level of the parking structure; we head down there for ice and rest. Jamie says it really doesn’t hurt that badly, but she’s acting like she’s in shock and sobbing at the thought of going to the hospital. We sit with her outside this restaurant, trying to get her to hold the ice on her nose, trying to decide what to do, because at this point, she really doesn’t seem to be in that much pain and the nose isn’t swelling that much… so we sit and talk and wait and all she wants to do is go back to the hotel. We’re finally convinced that she’s hurt, but more scared than anything and we convince her to spend a few more hours sightseeing then we can head back to the hotel later. It takes a couple of hours and a very large lollipop and she almost forgets all about her nose.

We take it pretty slow with the rain. Our timing is off, and we don’t want to wait the hour for the guided tour of the castle. And there really isn’t a tour book or any sort of “cliff notes” type information available at the castle (other than big, thick books) so this stop was pretty much a bust. We head down to the town in search of shopping and lunch. One of our goals was to buy some German, wooden Christmas ornaments; we find great stalls outside the church, then a great store on the tourist shopping street. We get a GREAT recommendation for lunch at Vetter Brauhaus (from an Asian shop keeper, who couldn’t speak very much English so she just walked us over to the restaurant!) and Jim has a great braut and Ann has goulash soup. Even Jamie is fairly happy with her French fries. We headed down to the River to inquire about a river cruise (also recommended by our hotel). Again our timing was off, so we headed back to the hotel to put some ice on Jamie’s nose and let her rest and watch movies for a while.

We had another restaurant recommendation from the hotel for dinner; Kulturbrauerei – this one was supposed to be the primo restaurant in town for authentic German cuisine. It had a nice atmosphere (sort of a beer hall in a barn) but the food was disappointing compared to our lunch. Ann continued to try various types of German wine and they all lived up to her expectations (and her expectations were fairly low – ha ha).

So, in general, our Germany stop was a let down. We had the rain, a hurt child and were probably a bit tired and ready for home, anyway… but the Marriott rocked!