Heidelberg Part Two

In which we arrive and visit the Heidelberg Castle!!  Enjoy the pictures!!

Getting closer

Our first stop of the day.

Tunnels!!

Waiting for the bus...

...to take us up to the castle!!!

Looking out over the walls

The entrance into...

...the courtyard

Another angle

Eating lunch while we wait for our tour

The tour begins!

Here are a couple models of the castle

This is the "postcard view" of the castle taken from the old bridge.

(more on that later)

Our tour guide did a great job!

Looking down over the walls - this is where the "dry moat" was.

Castle walls

  

This festive hall (obviously more modernly redone) is still used for weddings and such today.

The statues on this building are the "family tree" of the electors who ruled from/built the castle.  An interesting way to preserve family genealogy!

Another angle of the courtyard

Going down a 65 step spiral staircase - quite different than going down a normal one! :)

The chapel room

This region is known for its wine.  Not only that, but also for the largest wine barrel in the world!

This is a smaller one.

This is the famous one - there is even a dance floor on the top!!!

Taxes for the region were payed in wine.  So the Elector (or ruler) collected all the wine and put it together in one barrel! Wow!!

We went to the Apotheke museum (also within the castle courtyard) which had a lot of interesting information on the history of medicine.

In the castle wall!!

The funny thing was that while mommy was taking this picture of us, there were a couple of tourists in the background that snapped pictures of us too!  Oh well!! :)

Seth and Sayer on the walls

Stairs down to the grounds - look at the drainage system on the right side of the stairs.

Evidence of battles in days gone by - it was interesting to see how the tower was pretty much blown perfectly in half!

On the hill by the broken tower - it was steep and I almost fell coming down!! (thankfully not :)

There was so much pretty scenery walking around the grounds.  

This is looking down on old town Heidelberg below.

These pine trees were so pretty!

This was an interesting water drainage area of some kind

Castle walls - its amazing to walk around them in person!!