Heidelberg #3

One of the other main features of the city is a stone bridge spanning the Rhine.  The first bridge was built by Romans, fell down eventually and rebuilt as a stone one.  The current bridge was opened in 1788.  Jer and I crossed the bridge three or four times... the second time over we noticed this on the side of it.  It marks flood lines and their years.  It's pretty cool.

Our last time over the bridge was at night.  I was pointing out the locks earlier in the day, I told Jer what the locks on bridges mean and he went out and bought us a lock.  We put our names on it and locked it on the bridge.  They had told us that they only light the castle for special occasions and that it wouldn't be lit, but we went out and it was.

This was one of 2 or 3 pictures with all of us in it.

Heidelberg #2

One of our biggest stops to see in Heidelberg was the Church of the Holy Ghost.  It's the one that the Catholics and Protestants shared.  There are still little booths around the base of it.  I loved seeing one little grandma pushing her grandchild in a stroller.  She was chasing pigeons and her grandbaby was laughing wildly.

Jer and I paid the extra 2Euro each to climb the tower. It was fun to be up at the top.

I loved this.  I'm not sure what exactly it is, but I wouldn't mind finding out more.

A Playmobile Martin Luther.

I loved the angels too.

I took this on the way back down.  You can see Seth, Janelle and Mom there. 

We stayed for an organ concert that they had going on.  It was fun.  The organ was amazing, but the one at the Church of the Jesuits was spectacular and clear as a bell.

Heidelberg

Heidelberg was genuinely one of my favorite places.  We had an AirBnB right in the downtown.  We parked our van in an impossibly small parking garage and for two days we happily traipsed around on foot.  Everything was super close that we wanted to see.  It was also a very nice AirBnB unlike the one in Munich. 

 

Heidelberg has quite the history too, but to me a little less fascinating than the others.  Some notable things are that the oldest European man (not Neanderthal) was found here.  The castle was founded in 1100s.  Heidelberg is also the site for the oldest surviving European library.  They are a University town, so there were a lot of different European nations represented.  I heard a lot of Spain Spanish.  There are also a lot of little bookstores and clothing stores like a University town would need.  Dad was telling us that the Catholics and the Lutherans have been "at war" with one another in this city for hundreds of  years.  They literally built a wall through the town and through one of the churches that they both believed to belong to them.   

This little town square was so fun.  It had the Christmas store, several cafes, bookstore, etc... all around.

This was the living room in the AirBnB.  We'd been having a really hard time finding a place to do laundry during our trip.  This place had a washer and dryer that seemed to work fine for the first load... then wouldn't dry after that.  Jer finally figured out that there was a water catcher in it instead of a drain and we didn't know that we were supposed to be empting out the catcher.  Luckily he figured it out in enough time for us to get everything washed and dried.

There were lots of bikes, but some places had signs like this.... no bike parking... of course with bikes in front of it.

This is the city building.

various

Outside our AirBnB in Iceland.  There was graffiti all over the city.

I kind of like these.  These are one of the things that I was excited to introduce the kids to.

I got to hang out with this little cutie last Friday.  She's walking!  I can't believe she's that big!

This happy bush is just a couple blocks away from our house.  It makes me giggle every time we pass it.

Pirmasens

This was my Dad's apartment in Pirmasens.  He was in this area twice.  Once he was the Branch President and was called in to clean up the records of the members in the area.  Pirmasens had army presence too.  The bottom of this building was a little neighborhood store.  Now it's a center... but my brain is tired.  I thought it was for Arabic speakers, but the guy Seth was talking with was speaking Turkish.... so I'm not sure.  We stopped to take pictures of the building and the guy hanging around the door looked really intimidated and went inside.  When he came back out, Seth talked to him and he acted a lot friendlier.  As we were walking around, there were anti immigrant posters up and down the street and a rally in a town center.  No wonder we made the guy nervous. 

 

This was the Catholic church that Dad went to Mass at with his good friend, Martha.  She was a convert.  His first in Germany I think. 

Pirmasens is known for it's shoe factories.  They also have a shoe museum.

Dad's companion fell in love with a nurse from Pirmasens.  He kept getting "sick" so that he could see her.  After his mission, he came back and asked her to marry him.  She told him that he'd only marry someone rich.  He came and robbed this bank.  The newspaper said "Mormon Missionary Robs Bank".  That pretty much killed the missionary work in the area.

This is Martha's house.  Growing up, this is the one mission story that I heard lots of. In the MTC Dad had a dream.  He was walking down a cute German street and in the window was a lady with her head out the window looking anxious.  Well, his companion picked him up from the train station, dropped off his bags and ran to an appointment.  They walked up the street from his dream, he recognized the lady from his dream, and his companion turned right into her house.  Months later, she told him her half of the dream.  Apparently she had a dream of him and heard a voice that told her that she needed to listen to this man and that he would tell her the truth.  She died a long time ago and had wanted to leave this house to my dad.  He told her not to deed it to him and it got passed down to a nephew... While we were taking pictures this couple comes home.  Turns out that the nephew is this man's brother. 

This was the old church building.... now a pub.

This was where Dad remembers coming to open air markets. 

We ate in a little café right next to the Catholic church

This was the absolute best Turkish food that I think I had during our whole trip.  Sooooo good!  This was also the place that my Dad fell in love with the Astrix and Obelix comics.

I loved the rooftop of the hotel.  It was so fun hanging out up there and watching the sunset over the city.

This was the school where my Dad and his companion were asked to come take part of a multi denominational day.  They talked to the high school students about the lds faith.