Today was going to be our day for finding those beautiful towns I had been thinking were along the Neckar. There certainly are a lot to choose from. They have slightly confusing names, like: Guttenbach, Neckargerach, Eberbach, Neckarsteinbach, etc. Some, like Guttenbach, are clearly small and pretty plain. The radweg passes through, and you can get a fair idea of what the town is like. Others, like Neckargerach, are a little larger, and a bit of wandering may be needed to scope the place out.
Most towns looked pretty plain and normal, though still nice.
Neckargerach, in fact, needed some scoping out, because while we found the first bakery alright, it had the distinction of being the poorest one we have found in Germany. We bought two packages of juice, and then two nuss schnecken, just out of habit. The juice was pretty cool, because of the packaging, but the schnecken were dangerously close to what you might find in North America. Over here, that is a very grave criticism! So I said "This town has to have another bakery, the people could never survive with just that one". And indeed, we did find the second one, where we were able to buy some quality stuff.
Taking into account the towns (and bakeries), the quality of the path, the amount of on road cycling, and the general scenery, this route is shaping up as not quite as wonderful as some of the other segments we have done. It's strange to complain, because things here are way way better than so many other routes we know (in North America). Still...
Anyway, we felt sort of an obligation to try harder to find the good stuff on the Neckar. So instead of zooming by the next major town (Eberbach) we went in for a closer look. From a distance we could see a church with twin towers, and another single tower one. There was a pedestrian district too, and an ancient tower. It was a good try, but one church was rather plain and the other locked. The pedestrian zone was scattered and did not contain too much of interest, and certainly no market, and pedestrian zone or not, it had cars trundling through it.
One of the unique things (for us)about this route is that we have cycled it before, in 2012. It is covered in our blog "Grampies on the Go - Again". You can find the section we more or less cycled today, BY CLICKING HERE Standing by the church in Eberbach, we ourselves did that. We knew that 2012 Grampies had thought it pretty darn nice, and we wanted to see which highlights they thought we should look at.
Well, Grampies 2012 mentioned Hirschorn, coming up. It looked like a beautiful town to them, but they blew by it. So here was a chance to take the Grampies' advice, and also to cover something they sort of missed. Hirschorn is at a place where the river loops tightly, creating almost an island. The neat stuff is not on the almost island, but up a hill on the shore opposite. There is however an interesting chapel on the island part. It is the St Nazarius and Celsus cemetary chapel. This has a fairly quirky diarama set into an outside wall, and some very old frescoes inside. Old, faded frescoes always seem like good finds, something like cave paintings.
The actual altstadt of Hirschorn did live up to its billing. It both looks wonderful from across the bridge, and also when going down its main street. The buildings are old, many with steep roofs and with fachwerk, and the row of houses is suitably crooked, with walls not quite square or vertical. The buildings are occupied, as is normal, mostly by restaurants, but we found a (rare) public bench in the shade and ate food we already had in our bags. The main church in Hirschorn was quite plain, bit overall we marked Hirschorn down as one high point of the day.
As in the rest of Germany, there are many fruit trees, often seemingly not exactly part of a farm. Here there are mainly apples, which certainly are not ripe. Sometimes we do find a pruple plum tree that is ripe enough to try one or two. Not these, though.
Neckargemund was another town that looked quite interesting, as we passed by on the opposite side of the river. Suddently it was even more interesting, as we noticed smoke pouring from a large building next to the church, and fire trucks all around. It turned out to be only some sort of drill or demonstration, and soon there were announcements, maybe explaining what was going on. It sure fooled us for a bit, and we are susceptible, having read so many town histories that include great fires.
Some of the shady forest cycling included shady forest steep hills!
Now we come to Heidelberg. Heidelberg has several distinct parts. First, there is a giant schloss above the town. Then there is a hauptstrasse (high street) that is a couple of km long and is packed with tourists (as is the market square and the rest of downtown). Finally there is a major university, and, we assume, a city where real people live. Our friends Erika and Marvin Paxman have just visited Heidelberg, and focused on the schloss. We recommend their account of it - CLICK HERE.
Now about the market square and high street. Approaching Heidelberg, as we did, from up river, there was little inkling of what was to come. I (with my poor map) actually did not know which side of the river to expect the town on. Both sides showed basically wooded hills. We passed a sign that said Heidelberg, and dutifully snapped its picture as a reference for any photos to follow, but there was nothing but trees. It took another 2 km for the town and the famous schloss to come in to view.
Now we had some thinking to do. It was already getting rather late - like 4 p.m. Should we blow through town and just head for camping - maybe 20 km away near Mannheim - or should we find a guest house and hang around to look at Heidelberg. We chose a compromise - find tourist information and see what they could find in accommodation If reasonable, take it, if not, leave town.
The plan did not work quite as set out, because Tourist Information had paradoxically closed at 2 p.m. There was another one, if we cared to take a hike, about 5 km out of town at the train station. So, we went to Plan B, the walk through town.
That was easier said than done. More than Salzburg, more than Vienna, this town was packed with people. It was not just hoards of Chinese package tour people ( who were there), it was all kinds of people. They were thronging the street and filling each of the dozens (hundreds?) of restaurants. With our bikes to push, we were at quite a disadvantage when it came to moving around. What we did see, first off, was very lovely buildings. Typically they were substantial four or five story ones, with well articulated decoration around the windows, and multi pastel colours. And, there were many architecturally interesting churches, and narrow side streets.
Passing by all the people sitting at the outdoor tables of all the restaurants, we could see what the dishes looked like. We saw great looking pizzas, antipasto plates, huge salads, plates of roast meat, and all sorts of ice cream creations. It looked great. The only thing, very quickly the crowds got to us. We had been cycling for days in relatively lonely countryside. This was all too much. The thought of fighting for a seat at a table and a place to stash the bikes nearby was too much. And the thought of competing with all these people to plunk down enough euros for a place to sleep was too much. Finally we set out to push through the 2 km of shopping street, and really, that was too much. The shopping street also, though set in glorious substantial old buildings was no more than a US shopping plaza, with store interiors looking exactly as in a shopping centre back home. A very pleasant local girl, pushing her own bike on the high street, asked if she could help us. When Dodie said we just wanted to get back to the countryside, I was with her all the way.
We crossed a bridge, and entered a slightly more "real" cityscape on the far bank. Also on this bank was extensive green space, where people had gathered for what looked like a triathlon, and also to hang out and BBQ. Meanwhile, on the far bank, the city gave way to our of town hotels. We kept going, and soon passed through the third main aspect of the city - the University. The section we were in had medical research facilities. There was no old ivy covered building stuff - just modern square blocks.
When last through here, we wrote of stumbling on the town of Ladenbrug. Here was a nice market square, with fachwerk houses, and just a few restaurants around. That time, we had eaten at one of them and then rushed the last 10 km to the camping at Mannheim. This time, we found the little hotel Cronberger Hof, and stuck. We proved too beat to go out and look at the town, though the town pamphlet lists 17 things to look at. This includes some Roman ruins, several churches, and a museum, residence, and first garage of Carl Benz, claimed here to be the inventor of the motor car. Tomorrow, we will respond to all this with a quick spin around the market square by bike - not very good tourists, really.
We have however, at last found a really nice place. We loved it here last time, and we are happy here now. It's just in time, because when we hit Mannheim, it will be all over for our Book 18: The Neckar Radweg, and we will beback on the Rhine.
Finally back in the country, west of Heidelberg. This sculpture was advertising a "visit the farms" day.
How about this ploy for learning German. Since we know every episode of the early seasons of Big Bang Theory by heart, watch the German dubbed version, and seem to understand what they are saying.
