Wednesday 29th June Bad Durkheim to Dettenheim
Some days you are just not meant to get out of bed. After a lazy lie in due to no power (too tight to put another euro in the slot), no internet (somebody played too many facebook games) and not much water (again too tight) we headed off to fill up the motor home with some cheap diesel. However Bad Durkheim heard we were desperate for diesel and bumped their prices up 4 cents a litre overnight and then restricted driving in the main centre to the Vodafone shop. Never mind we were heading for the metropolis of Heidelberg and would purchase more data credit there.
It’s amazing how one letter can cost you dearly, the GPS thought we wanted to go to Heidenberg not Heidelberg, yes 2¾ hours did seem a long time to drive in the complete opposite direction, but we had told the GPS to avoid major roads and towns so it seemed half reasonable. After sitting in a130km/hr traffic jam watching our diesel evaporate, we got off the motorway, gave the GPS a spelling lesson and went to Heidelberg. Next minute we are stuck in town with nowhere to park but a dozen underground car parks for cars only. We drove quite some way out of town with the thought of walking back but dismissed that idea, with the hope that there was a park and ride somewhere near town. We created our own in a supermarket carpark near a tram station. Yahoo! Things are looking up, or so we thought. We now have no money so we went in search of cash point machine.
Apparently there are none in this area, so we boarded the tram with our last Euros heading for the Schloss, which in our translation is castle, exactly 
where we wanted to go. However after heading in the reverse direction for what seemed eternity we got off when the driver got off. No offence to the new driver but we figured by now that Schloss was also a town 63 minutes out of town by slow tram.
After boarding the tram back to the town centre we got some cash, bought the much needed data and walked to the Castle and Funicular. The Castle was not so exciting except for the old apothecary or pharmacy museum.
The Funicular ride was impressive, very steep, the carriage overloaded, and the 550 metre look out was definitely breath taking. We then headed down walked the length of the tourist strip and caught the tram back to our self appointed park and ride. 
Rewarding ourselves with surviving a day of mishaps we sat in the van eating pastries while trying to load our data. Not to be outdone by me, the self proclaimed expert at luring young rowers into small enclosures, Roger lured a young German into the van to interpret the instructions. Nice chap, he has just come back from a motor homing holiday in NZ and spoke beautiful English.
Tonight’s free park is a Go Kart track in Dettenheim. It was somewhat noisy until the patrons went home and now we only have to contend with the men setting up the barriers and stalls for some big event coming up. One of our neighbours came over to talk to us and it didn’t matter how much we told him that we didn’t speak German he still carried on asking questions; possibly our English is beginning to sound German?
| PHOTO GALLERY |
| Previous page |
Heidelberg Castle
Looking down from funicular
Heidelberg from the funicular