Interrail 2025 – part five

Today (Thursday) is Christi Himmelfahrt or Ascension Day as we might know it. The main impact on us is that transport is more limited than usual and most shops are shut. It feels very much like (those older ones among us might remember) what Sunday used to be like.

We did find, however, that Heidelberg Castle was open and, since the weather was dry and quite warm, we set off to ‘do’ that. A bus from the end of our street took us directly to the (mainly deserted) Altstadt within a short walk to the Kornmarkt and funicular number 1 up the the actual castle.

We were feeling quite smug for, as we thought, avoiding the crowds by going early. On reaching the top we realised our misunderstanding! Hordes of people, mostly of Oriental background, had already arrived by coach.

Undeterred we strolled past (through) this crowd and took in the terrace area of the castle. This area was blessedly quiet and afforded, amongst other things, magnificent views across the Neckar to where we were in the rain yesterday evening.

The ruins are really quite spectacular – the ‘lean-to’ remains of the round tower were remarkable.

The whole castle was way, way over the top but still quite arresting.

As we walked we heard a commotion – it tuned out to be a duck protecting the young. About 190 of them we thing and cute as anything. We kept our distance of course so as to minimise any further disruption.

Neck up was Vater Rhein – a rather tired looking old statue close to the prison section.

By now, as we headed back towards the funicular we saw the courtyard was (slightly) less busy so went to have a look. Set up for an upcoming music festival and still hordes of people.

I couldn’t resist a signpost to “The Big Barrel” (Das Grosser Fass) in what turned out to be a significant bar area (no drink was taken by us!) Of course there was a big barrel (and an even bigger one!)

Next up (literally) was the funicular 2 to the mid station and funicular 3 (the antique) to the top and Königstuhl (King’s Seat). A slow and interesting journey to about 1800ft above sea level with views across the plain to Mannheim & beyond.

We headed back via the 3 funicular trains to ground level where a lot of people were out strolling. We were lucky enough to grab a table at the Café Schafheutle where we had coffee & cake on Tuesday and also lucky enough to catch breakfast (it runs until 12:30). so we feasted on an absolutely wondeful cheese omelette each as a brunch/lunch before buying a cake or two to bring back with us.

Since then we have rested of course, had a walk round the locality partly to stretch our legs a bit more and partly to locate the bottle bank. We are both ‘as packed as we can be’ ready or the early start tomorrow morning – a 5am alarm to get us on the road to Nancy via Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Strasbourg. A tram and 3 trains ‘should’ get us there by lunchtime but we have flexibility in the plan to adjust. Once again the power of the Interrail Pass comes in handy 😉

The only thing we have to watch out for tomorrow is the weather – this time extremely high temperatures – we have water & sun lotion so we should be OK. As for the transport system – who knows?