Heidelberg 11/04/2015

Today I made a visit to Heilderberg to visit the ruins old the Heildelberg Schloss (castle).

This time I did the journey with my motorbike. It took around an hour of straight autobahn. I was able to park really close to the castle. Just before I parked I found a really curious traffic signal warning for the presence of frogs. I had never seen one of those so it deseverd a photo.

As soon as I started walking I had really nice views from the city. In the picture you can see an overview of the old-city. The big church is called Heiliggeistkirche (church of the Holy Spirit) and the bridge is called Älte Brücke (old bridge).

The entrance in the schloss costs 6€. You can see most of it from the outside but I think it's worth to get inside to take a look.  From the outside the towers are impressive. Some of them are in good condition and others are partly destroyed. Once you get inside it looks like a town-center. 

The original castle dates back from the 12th century. It was later expanded, destroyed and reconstructed several times. That's why we can see different types of buildings. 

Inside the castle there is the main square from which you can see al the buildings. Some of them look pretty well preserved and others are nearly ruins. The style of this buildings looks really different from the ones of the towers.

Strasbourg 27/03/2015

Today I made a visit to Strasbourg and particularly to the Strasbourg Cathedral or Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg.


The journey from Karlsruhe to Strasbourg took a bit less than 2 hours by regional trains, as they are cheaper. Once we got there we walked over a bridge an entered in the old part of the city and keep walking till we found the Cathedral.


First think you notice is it's height, 142 meters that made it the tallest building in the world from 1647 to 1874 , and the clearly Gothic style of the front gate. Then we went to the sides to be able to see it's real size. As you can see it's really big.

We where able get inside and climb till one of the highest parts in from which we could appreciate good panoramic views from the city. The old style buildings are clearly dominating in this part of the city and they give a medieval atmosphere to the view.

Some curious information from the cathedral is that it took 263 to build (1176-1439). It was build over the ruins of the previous cathedral, which burned to the ground.