Heidelberg Castle

Happy New Year! The sightseeing Smiths have been very busy in 2015… first and foremost, we had a sweet baby boy who makes our life complete. Second, we moved from Okinawa, Japan, to Ramstein, Germany. This was a big move for us; it was our first move as a married couple and we both learned a lot about what to do and what not to do during this time. But, that is another post for another day. Anyways, I'm starting off the new year with trying to keep up with some of our travels now that we are in Europe. I'm going to start with the first city we visited: Heidelberg, Germany.

The Castle overlooks old downtown Heidelberg

Heidelberg is about an hour drive away via the autobahn, through countryside and vineyards- but on this day it was foggy and the views were not that great (it has literally rained or stayed overcast every single day since we've been here). We were destined for Heidelberg Castle. It being a Sunday, I didn't realize that most shops/restaurants would be closed so I guess we lucked out that the castle stayed open to tourists. We bought tickets to walk around the grounds but didn't know you had to buy a separate ticket to go inside! Oh well, we will save that for another trip, I suppose.

the Castle was built around 1214 for Louis I, and later expanded by Rupert III

a little excited to be here?

 Every street we walked down was so picturesque- what a beautiful old town

a view from the top

After visiting the castle, we decided to walk around the downtown area and find something to eat.  We found an Irish Pub that was open (and looked stroller friendly). It was not too busy and a had nice pub atmosphere with decent food. After lunch I had the most amazing gelato i've ever tasted- mine was cappuccino flavor, Corey went with the zimt (cinnamon). We plan to return to Heidelberg in the warmer months and explore a little more!