Of Cathedrals and Castles

After spending a wonderful day in Paris, Tigger and Co. were off to Germany.  Mouse and Badger headed off to the train station first thing in the morning and caught a train to Cologne, Germany, home of one of the most well-known cathedrals in Europe.

In order to make the most of our Eurail pass, we had decided to spend a few hours visiting the cathedral before traveling to Heidelberg.  (It would have worked too, if France had been a country on our Eurail pass, but with France you have to get the pass for all of Europe or France isn't included.  Oh well, we stuck to the original plan anyway because Badger was proud of her cleverness.)  There was an exhibit showing some of the relics that have survived the ages and our now held at that cathedral.  There were even some medallions that were given to pilgrims journeying to the cathedral in the Middle Ages, which just goes to show that the tourist souvenir business is not exactly a new concept.

We then decided to try to climb the tower and get a look out over the town, since there was no other way we were going to see it.  However, we had limited time to get back to the station to catch our train  out of there, and had to abandon that mission about halfway through.  Mouse and Badger maintain that they definitely could have made it up all the way despite the large number of steps.  Yeah, they just ran out of time. 

So, it was back to the train for picturesque ride down the Rhine River.  The train followed the river for most of he journey, and included quite a few castles on the other side of the bank.  Tigger approved of the view.

We arrived in Heidelberg and found the hostel to be quite close to the train station.  It was probably one of the nicest hostels we stayed at.  The decorations gave made it feel very relaxing.

The next day we set out to explore Heidelberg and storm, I mean see, the castle.  We had to walk a little ways to get there, but the waterfront view made up for that.

The castle was situated on a hill, which meant more walking that felt more like climbing.  Can you tell we were a little tired by this point?

The view, however, was quite worth it.

There was a museum about the history of pharmaceuticals, which appealed to Badger's love of chemistry and history and Mouse's love of seeing Badger look like a kid in a candy shop.  It was quite fun until Badger broke one of the exhibits.  Yes, Badger dropped a jar filled with herbs.  Now, it was meant to be picked up, and wasn't a priceless artifact, so we didn't get run out of the museum.  In fact, the guy who came to clean it up was very nice about it.  That didn't stop Badger's heart from stopping for a couple of beats.  She was saved from excessive hyperventilation by Mouse's cool head.  That aside, it was a cool exhibit and Badger was eventually able to be grateful that, even if her lab at work isn't perfect, at least most of her containers a plastic and less prone to breakage.


After we had seen our fill of castle ruins, we walked back through main street and picked up dinner.  Badger even tried German beer.  Neither of us are big beer drinkers, but it was pretty good and worth trying.

 Tigger relaxes at the hostel

We got back to the hostel fairly early and just took it easy that night, ready to venture into the Swiss Alps the following day.