Destination 28 : Heidelberg, Germany

Date of Visit : 20 November 2011

Heidelberg is about 90 minutes from Frankfurt using the regional train system, this makes it a perfect day trip destination from Frankfurt. That is exactly what Christin and I did!

Heidelberg is a charming old town, most famous for it's castle on the mountain. Naturally, that's the first place we visit when we arrived. As mentioned, the castle is built on a mountain, so we have to make our way up the mountain. Thinking that we could save some money, we decided to take the stairs up. It was really tiring, and the worst part was our entrance ticket into the castle actually includes a funicular ride up the mountain! All the climbing for nothing!

The castle has a very interesting history, but I shall not go into it as it'll take a long time. Basically, it was built for the Prince Elector of the region. There were a total of eight Prince Electors in medieval Germany, and they have the power to chose the new King if the old one died. They are pretty important people back then, thus they have nice castles. Anyway, the castle is really beautiful, despite being partially destroyed by the all wars Germany faced throughout history.

 

 

 

 

 

We signed ourselves up for a guided tour of the castle, which was rather cheap for a tour. I think it is about EUR3, if I remember correctly. The guide brought us through the fascinating history of the castle, and it is truly amazing that we still get to see it today!

 

 

Did you know that Heidelberg is also a medicine town? The town has it's root dug deep in the study of medicine and pharmacy. Presently, Heidelberg has one of the most prestigious medical university in Germany. Everyone who wants to become a doctor in Germany will probably come here to study. Anyway, there is a museum showcasing the medicinal history inside the castle. They also have a medieval chemistry lab inside the museum, which is pretty cool to see how people used to do chemistry back in the old days. The last photo is actually the bunsen burner of their time! Lol.

 

 

Another famous attraction in the castle is the world's biggest barrel! It is ENORMOUS, that thing. They used to fill the barrel up with wine that was collected as tax, which was kind of gross as they mixed all kinds of wine together in that barrel. The Prince Elector would then show off to his guest about the barrel and pour them a drink from it. Hmmm.... To visualise the size of the barrel, look at the size of the people in the photos below. There is even a platform for us to stand on top of the barrel.

 
And this is the Prince Elector who built and owned the barrel, standing proudly in front of his giant barrel.

The old town of Heidelberg is pretty much like Salzburg, in my opinion. It's a small town cramped with tourist shops.

 

 

  

Before we left, we past by this pastry shop which sells schneeball, a kind of biscuit. We bought an original schneeball with only frosting on it. Nothing very special about it, other than it is in the shape of a ball.

All in all, Heidelberg is the perfect getaway from Frankfurt if one gets bored in the city. It is a quiet and charming old town which is really nice and relaxing to just stroll around all day. Furthermore, it's pretty easy to get here, with trains running almost hourly.

Destination 27 : Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Date of Visit : 19 - 21 November 2011

After a rough night on board a night train from Vienna, where for some reason the train keeps braking suddenly, I arrived at Frankfurt am Main at 05.45am in the morning. Frankfurt city is the commercial and business center of Germany. It is a modern financial city with the occasional old buildings in between.

I'm also in this city to visit my friend, Christin, who came to Singapore for an exchange semester the year before. She works in Frankfurt now, and she has kindly agreed to show me around the city. I must say that I was blessed with perfect weather during the visit. Everyday was clear blue skies!

One of the first places she brought me to see is the European Stock Exchange. Nothing too impressive about it, though there is a statue of a bull and bear in front of it. But I think all of us know that the bear is prevailing in the markets now :(

Next we went to see the Frankfurt opera house. They're not quite as famous as those of other cities though. How often do we hear Frankfurt opera anyway?

We also popped by a church to take a peek inside. It happened that the church choir was practicing inside, so we sat down and listen for a while.

It was unfortunate that I visited Frankfurt a few days before their Christmas market opens. But all around me, they were getting ready for the Christmas market. We went by this giant Christmas tree, which I said looked horrible, much to the dismay of Christin. But it does isn't it? The leaves are too sparse! Haha.

As mentioned earlier, Frankfurt is the commercial capital of Germany, thus high rise buildings are common here. Actually, I think Frankfurt is the first city in Europe I've seen so far that has so many skyscrapers. But note though, when I say many, it's not really that many. There are probably about less that 10 buildings that really qualify as skyscrapers.

When night falls, I imagined that the buildings might be lighted up nicely, but they did not. Just a few of the buildings are lighted up. It's not entirely a pretty sight, as compared to our Marina Bay. I really think that Marina Bay at night is really beautiful. I still remember once or twice, where I just sat down and just admire our skyline across the bay. Mesmerizing 

VS

Frankfurt is also home to the European Central Bank(ECB). The plaza beneath the building is the popular site for people to protest, especially now with the Eurozone crisis. In fact, there is now a group of activist, who calls themselves "Occupy Frankfurt", after the famous "Occupy Wall Street" movement, occupying the plaza. Apparently, they are going to "occupy" every city in the world until some change is done. They literally occupy the space, setting up tents and everything there. They claim that they will not leave until they get chased away. I cannot imagine anyone trying to "occupy" cities like Singapore or China. They will probably get dragged away before they even set up their tents.

Christin brought me to a German bar/pub for dinner. Being in Frankfurt, I chose to eat the Frankfurter, lol. It was not bad, but the potato side was good.

Because I am reluctant to step into any museum at all, there is really not much for me to do at all. Thankfully I only have a day in Frankfurt, otherwise I'm really not sure what I'm going to do the following day! My advice to people who are thinking of coming to Frankfurt, don't come here just to visit the city, there is really not much around here. You can probably spend half a day here if you transit at Frankfurt Airport, which should be common given that Frankfurt (am Main) Airport is the aviation hub for continental Europe.

Speaking of flights, here's another travel tip. When I first book the flight from Frankfurt to Helsinki(my next next destination) with Ryanair, I thought that I've scored a real cheap deal as the flight was only EUR26. However, I fail to realize that the flight leaves from Frankfurt Hahn Airport and arrives at Tampere Airport. The bus ticket from Frankfurt to Frankfurt Hahn cost EUR13, the bus ticket from Tampere Airport to the train station cost EUR6 and the train ticket from Tampere train station to Helsinki cost EUR23. In total, the trip cost EUR68, which is about the same for flying some other airlines from Frankfurt (am Main) Airport to Helsinki (Vantaa) Airport. But doing the latter is much easier and will spend less time travelling to and fro the airports. Therefore, lesson learnt, not all cheap flights are worth it!