Of fairy tale castles and chilled out unis...

The Lonely Planet has many good things and a few not so good stuff to be about Bavarians. I can't say I wasn't prepared. So after a lot of planning and quite a lot of haggling about trains at the ticket counter, we embarked on our first journey a day later.

We start our journey with the Rhine Valley. Our first stop was Heidelberg. Heidelberg is most popular for the castle and the breathtaking view from the top. We reached around evening and took a bus to the bottom of the hillock on which the castle is built. The climb to the top is pretty painful but the view makes it worth it. The view is pretty cool and there are many photo clicking opportunities. Other than the castle, Heidelberg is popular as a university town. And since we went on a weekend, it meant that the whole city was in high spirits :-) The old town is very pretty with old buildings and inviting eating places. The best way to see this place is by random directionless roaming and that is precisely what we did that night. It is good fun when the entire town is also out on the streets and narrow cobbled streets just stretch out in every direction.

Wikipedia describes the Rhine as 'one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe at 1,320 kilometres (820 mi), with an average discharge of more than 2,000 cubic meters per second. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2002) and known as "the romantic Rhine" with more than 40 castles and fortresses from the Middle Ages (see links) and many quaint and lovely wine villages.' That is exactly where we went on the ferry ride. Oops, sorry...did I say ferry? The man at the ticket counter was offended when I asked for ferry tickets. "It's a ship, maam", he replied rudely :-P The ride from Mainz to Koblanz though fully justified the the UNESCO heritage tag with fairy tale castles along the way. After some entertainment which involved V getting drunk on wine, we figure out we are very late and run to the station (in what is to become a very regular feature) to catch the train to Munich. Through parks and streets and beautiful houses, we run accompanied by joggers tuned in to their Ipods. And so Munich, here we come!