main street (hauptstrasse)

(for some unknown reason blogger wont let me spell check or add images. i'll try do this later so keep your snooty comments about this to yo'self for now, fool!!!)

to follow on from what i was writing yesterday, my companions and i walked the philosopher's walk (philosophenweg) and down across the river neckar via the old bridge. this bridge leads us through the keep and into the old town. (to note i have no idea if this construction is a keep, a ford or what have you. if any medieval nerds reading this know what it is technically called then please let me know. i am nowhere near nerdy enough to know of these matters.) this was my first visit to the old town and to the main streets of heidelberg. it seems strange to me that this most touristy of places is actually a thriving shopping district and used regularly by the residents of the city. if it was in australia, or anywhere in the more westernised and recently-built places, it would be heritage listed and everything that lay inside would be untouched and companies such as mcdonald's and starbucks would be denied permits to sell their sub-par wares. however, in germany it seems the corporate and comercial spirit is alive and well. that being said, unlike frankfurt, these corporations seem to have gotten into the spirit of the old town and given that the main street is exactly that, a main street, they don't seem that out of place. in frankfurt the starbucks and subway 'restaurant' in the old town stick out like sore thumb and ruin the atmosphere and view, blighting any picture taken.

i digress, so we walked into the old town and into the small alleyways (steingasse). the first thing i notice is the market feel of the place. everything looks and feels like you've gone back in time. as if at any moment a guy in a suit of armour and riding a horse will canter past claiming the french have begun their attack on the western front. incidentally the french did attack heidelberg and burnt the place to the ground. (reading the history of heidelberg it turns out that nearly every race has had a go at trying to claim heidelberg. the french, the bavarians, the americans and even the swedish have had a go. i've been waiting to hear if the dutch or the italians tried, i'm sure somewhere around here i'll adventually hear something about them.) having a guy ride past on a horse is actually not so stupid a concept, it turns out that there is a hotel/pub here on the haupstrasse that was initially used by knights to sleep after quests and such. just a place for them to hang out, get drunk and shag a local barmaid, proclaiming stories of past deeds and galantness of all sorts. (the picture here is of the knights' hangout)

one of the first things you see after walking into this area is a strange monkey cat thing with a space in it's head for you to put your head in for a photo. i seriously doubt this was here back in the day, but makes for a very amusing photo op and continues the german tradition of strange and random things getting immortalised in statue form. no one i was with could tell me why it was here and no one could even guess. it just was. i made alexis put his head in it for shits and giggles, and yes i did giggle, but no shitting cause that's for berlin or frankfurt. this is a classy city, not one of 'those' german cities (link nwf). apart from the weird mokey cat thing statue, everything else here is like i said, straight out of the past. our first stop along this trail was a small pub (brauhaus - i think that's how you spell it - means brew house) which makes its own beer in either light or heavy. (note that in germany light and heavy means light or dark in colour, not the amount of alcoholic content) and me not being a fan of guinessy drinks or dark ales, chose the light. it was fantastic and had i have not been suffering still from jetlag and not being with companions that included kids, i would have insisted on staying for more. but then again, on reflection, i think i had consumed enough alcohol to stop a hoard of rhinos in the past couple of days so it was a good thing that we continued on our way after one. the beers are freakin' huge here, so after two i'd probably be pissed. looks like all the pint drinking in preparations for this trip with kiwi ben (my old work colleague) and irish pete did nothing to prepare me. at least i have the australian drinking culture down, we may get tipsy a little quicker, but by god can we keep going and outdrink nearly everyone. (ask my canadian friends about their trips to australia and what they can remember for evidence of this) but then again what else would you expect from the second biggest beer drinking nation after germany. in this particular pub there are wooden seats that run parrallel to the wooden tables that are setout cafeteria side along one wall and run around the corners, while on the other side of the building from the tables and chairs there is the bar and next to that, two huge metal vats for the beer making. sitting down and enjoying our beers you can't help but notice all the stuff over the walls. i personally liked the dodgy painting of the drunk monk holding some kind of drinking flagon. turns out that monks used to originally make the beer here and i can see why, it's heavenly. (haha... sorry couldn't resist the crappy one liner) there's german sayings written over the walls (all of which i obviously can't understand) and over the doors and above the bar are fake grape vines, which i assume to mean they make their own wine too. don't ask me where, cause i don't know and don't care, i'm here for beer! if i wanted wine i would have stayed in australia or maybe gone to france or italy.

so anyway we left after a beer and continued on down the steingasse and around a corner, which then opened up into the fischmarkt and the marktplatz (for those not getting the german lingo - fish market and marketplace). here you can see the marvelous church of the holy spirit and the city hall. (church pictured) the church dates back to 1693 and for awhile was the largest gothic building in the former palatinate, an earlier name for the heidelberg area when it was under rule by one of the surrounding kingdoms. just as a side-note of star wars related stupidity, everytime the name palatinate comes up, i want to say palpatine. it makes me giggle thinking that the area was once under rule by the evil leader of the sith. hehehe... ahem... in the middle of the marktplatz is a statue, i don't know what of, but it's not that impressive compared to other statues i've seen. and nowhere near as amusing as the monkey cat thing or the random giger alien made from spare car parts in a chandelier shop front that i saw much later.

from here we start our way down the hauptstrasse and walk for what seems like an enternity. the hauptstrasse in heidelberg is apparently one the longest in germany, perhaps europe. it goes on forever. to compare, if you took the main CBD of melbourne including QV, melbourne central and the 'paris' end of collins street and layed them in one long row you'd get something similar but probably still not as long. this is pretty impressive considering the population of melbourne is something like 3.2 million and heidelberg is about 150,000. i personally would have been in shopping heaven, if it weren't for the picturesque buildings and absolutely gob-smacking scenery. i think you can all guess by now that i am in love with the way heidelberg looks. the people and culture i don't know about yet as i've only just got here and only know one german person who lives here. but if the looks are anything to go by, this place is definately on the list of world's prettiest places. montreal and madrid can kiss my arse. not that i've been there, but they'll have to try pretty bloody hard to beat this. having said that, alexis has shown me pictures of oporto in portugal and it might just do it.

the shops that lie along the hauptstrasse are of varied sorts. everything from vodafone (dear god, my old work is everywhere!) and thai restaurants, to winter clothing stores and traditional german souviners. there is also a christmas store along here, which my mother would have died to get her hands on some the items inside. i took some pictures of it to taunt her with, cause there is no way in hell i'm wasting room in my return luggage for christmas nonsense. considering it's still october i can't wait to see what comes out for december. from what i hear there's also a huge christmas market that gets set up in the marktplatz and you can get everything there from gifts to christmas hams. just something else to make my mother jealous.

to finish up, the walk along the hauptstrasse ends at the main public transport junction. not as exciting as the start of the walk, alot more functional. hehehe... here you can see the diversity of the inhabitants of heidelberg. students, corporate suits, funky hipster types and your basic heidelbergers. i'm a little dissapointed at the serious lack of gothic and hardcore germans, but i think they live in the of the country. but then again i haven't been out that much and i'm sure they're somewhere here, after all this is germany. i did see an emo in mannheim, but that journey's for the next entry. so we made our way back to the car, crossing the neckar river once again, this time via a modern bridge and down bruckenstrasse. two of the most amusing things are along this street - an eyeglasses shop with red fake cows on the roof (i haven't figured out why) and a big grey building which has written on it 'heidelberg klinik fur plastische und kosmetische chirurgie' which means, you guessed it - heidelberg clinic for plastic and cosmetic surgery. until next time, when i talk about mannheim, buying my jacket (which i am not-so-secretly in love with), enter a church that still stands after i leave and other random events. auf wiedersehen.