Castles, Burgs and Bridges Oh MY!

This weekend was our first spring weekend in Germany. We couldn't have asked for a better weekend, sunny and warm all weekend, so we got out of the house and headed north to Castle Road or as the signs say Burgenstasse. You can see part of the road below, it actually goes all the way to Prague. We did the portion between the arrows.

Our first stop was in Bad Wimpfen. All that remains is one tower, and of course as you will see thru the course of this post there are a lot of stairs! The view from the top was quite amazing you could see up and down the Neckar River. The town is built of half wood houses. All the wooden beams in them are painted on the exterior of the house to stand out. We did well ordering our lunch in GERMAN!

Our next stop was Hornberg Castle or Burg Hornberg in German. (Burg means castle in German).

They tried to lock us out but Brian figured out the combination to get in!

This castle also had a winery! What luck for us! We sampled some and then bought a bottle to go. Personally I think this castle was created to keep an eye on the vineyards below!

And of course there were more stairs!

We decided that there was no way to stop at all the castles so some we just took pictures from afar. Like this one in Zwingenberg.

The next stop brought us to the ruins of the Hinterburg Castle. The overlook was fantastic, but there was not much left to this old burg.

The beautiful drive landed us in the bustling tourist town of Heidelberg. The narrow cobblestone streets were filled with flowers, cafe's, restaurants, shops, and lots of people. We walked around for an hour and then settled into a restaurant for dinner and drinks...and of course dessert! At 8:30pm it was only just getting dark! Summer nights will be long in Europe!

On Saturday we visited the Heidelberg Castle for stunning views of the town and river. The castle was huge and it was free to visit the grounds and outer perimeter.

Here is a view of the town and the famous bridge over the Neckar River.

Next we walked down to the bridge and took pictures of the Heidelberg Castle from below.

These love locks had couples names engraved on them and were attached to the bridge! Apparently this is becoming more and more frequent around Europe and some gates and bridges are filling up with locks!

After leaving Heidelberg we made our way to Mannheim to visit the Mannheim Palace.

It was a great weekend with a lot of exploring...and a lessoned learned! If traveling on the autobahn and you come upon a car accident, don't expect any traffic to get rerouted. The autobahn turns into a parking lot and it's okay to get out to mingle!

Thanks for reading! Until our next adventure!

~Cathy & Brian