In stark contrast to the stretch of Rhine we sailed through the day before, the river we woke to on our fifth official day of our river cruise aboard the AmaSiena was quite industrial, the shore lined with factories and other signs of German industry. Today, we were docked in Ludwigshafen, across the Rhine River from Mannheim (yes, as in Steamroller). Ludwigshafen is noted for being the epicenter of Germany’s chemical industry and this was a fact you could not miss.
After breakfast, we congregated in the ship’s main communal space for a wine symposium from Brad. As I mentioned in my Cologne/Düsseldorf recap, to replace the wine that had gone missing, he was taken to a beautiful wine store in Cologne where he found a bunch of lovely wines to bring back to the ship. They were served at the fancy winemaker’s dinner I shared in that same post, as well as during this symposium. The wines we sampled during his talk were then available for us to drink at the absolutely wonderful barbecue that was set up on the ship’s upper deck and again later in the evening.
Afterward, it was off to Heidelberg via coach, a town I’d seen many pictures of and was looking forward to visiting someday. Now, before I continue summarizing our day, I want to take a moment to address a question-slash-comment of concern I’ve received from a few people who follow me on Instagram and/or read this blog: “On a trip like this, how much time do you actually spend in these beautiful locations?”
The answer is—I’m sorry to say—not that much.
When we went on our previous river cruise I didn’t really notice the short pit stops because the point of that cruise was to visit the Christmas markets up and down the Danube, not necessarily tour the cities and/or towns they happened to be held in. A quick panoramic tour (river cruise speak for a drive-by tour from inside a nice bus) through Budapest, or a two-hour walking tour of Vienna or the Benedictine Abbey tour in Melk were the cherry on top of the Christmas market sundae, whereas a summer cruise down the Rhine—for me, at least—was more about getting out and visiting the towns that were featured on the itinerary, and Heidelberg was one I was very excited by.
The way these days are laid out is fairly simple: the cruise line offers a choice of excursions which are then listed by activity level (ie, how strenuous something is rated). I’ve had bad knees since high school, and this past year I’ve developed a weird foot condition that can make walking painful (you might have noticed in my pictures from this trip that I’m wearing white tennis shoes in every picture taken off the ship. They wouldn’t be my first choice in terms of fashion, but I don’t even care anymore that my footwear isn’t cute. I was not about to wreck my feet on a two-week trip through Europe). That being said, in Cologne, we’d done the relaxed walking tour and it was a bit too sedate for us so once we arrived in Heidelberg, we switched to the more active group. Honestly, I’m not sure I could tell you what the difference was between the sedate or active tours because we were all together for the majority of the time we toured Heidelberg Castle, which isn’t a castle so much as a castle ruin overlooking the city.
The Heidelberg Castle ruins are among the most important Renaissance structures north of the Alps. The earliest castle structure was built before 1214 and later expanded into two castles circa 1294; however, in 1537, a lightning bolt destroyed the upper castle. The present structures had been expanded by 1650, before damage by later wars and fires. In 1764, another lightning bolt caused a fire which destroyed some rebuilt sections. The castle has only been partially rebuilt since its demolition in the 17th and 18th centuries.
You can read more of the castle’s history here.
This being a wine cruise, of course we were all interested in visiting the Barrel Building, a room in the castle that stores 220,000 litres of wine. Suffice it to say, the man who installed it was quite the alcoholic.
When the tour of the castle was finished, we were given a couple of hours to sightsee on our own. Unfortunately, I hadn’t really done any research prior on what else we might want to see in Heidelberg because I didn’t realize the guided portion of our visit to the town would only consist of the castle as our time in Cologne consisted of several different historical sites. I was hot and sweaty and felt a bit cut adrift, so when our new friends Benny and Dan asked if we wanted to go get a cocktail, we jumped at the chance.
We wandered away from the main square a bit to check out a famous sculpture of the Heidelberg Bridge Monkey. The concept of the monkey dates back to the 15th century. Back then, it was a stone statue in the tower of the Old Bridge, located opposite Heidelberg’s Old Town. The purpose of the tower was to “instill fear and respect in anyone arriving in the town, while the monkey represented mockery.” The statue was destroyed with the tower during the Nine Years’ War. In 1977, a bronze statue of the monkey with a hollow head was designed by a German sculptor named Gernot Rumpf. It was then installed at the Old Bridge next to the tower in 1979. “In contrast to its predecessors, the monkey's right hand does not grasp its posterior, but shows the sign of the horns, which is supposed to ward off the evil eye. It is said if a visitor touches the sign of horns, they will return to Heidelberg. If they touch the mirror, they will become wealthy, and if they touch the mice next to the monkey, they will have many children.”
From there, we located an adorable square where we found an empty table at an outdoor cafe and sat down to order our drinks. In my case, it was a Negroni (something I gravitated toward on this trip a lot), while Alan ordered a local beer. It’s a testament to how hot and sweaty I was that I don’t have a single picture of this adorable square or my drink.
Afterward, we headed over to the main shopping street to check out another recommended Christmas store (Kathy Wulfhart, again) and search out a hat pin for Benny and Dan. I was also on the hunt for some nasal spray as being near a few heavy smokers at the cafe had activated my allergies. One thing I love about visiting pharmacies and apothecaries in Europe is despite the language differences, the people employed in these shops are excellent at their jobs and they always know what to get you. I walked out having spent 8 euro but able to breathe again! Definitely the best money spent that afternoon.
On the walk back to the buses a funny thing happened. A fellow cruise passenger approached me and said, “Excuse me, are you Rebecca?” Confused, I told her I was. It turned out that the staff aboard our ship couldn’t tell us apart. You see, I have severe food allergies that require me to carry an epi-pen, and because of this, I was able to review the food menus a day ahead of time to make my selections so the cook(s) could make sure to prepare it away from any cross contaminants. Apparently, they’d been going up to her quite frequently thinking she was me! Did we look alike? I mean, in that we both had chin length brown hair, white skin, and were a certain size and shape, I suppose you could say we shared a resemblance with one another, but if someone showed me her picture and asked if we were related, I wouldn’t have said we looked anything alike. *shrug*
Back on the boat, a number of passengers cooled off in the pool before dinner, which was a lovely lamb chop. Alan also got a lump crab meat appetizer that I could only drool over because of my shellfish allergy. I can say with all honesty the food on this cruise has not disappointed!
I can't remember what we did to close out the night and I have no photographic evidence after dinner of what might have transpired. The closest guess I can muster is we adjourned to the top of the boat with a few glasses of wine and enjoyed the weather and the scenery.
