To Heidelburg, Germany and beyond!..

Day two and an early start of 8am for the Oz Bus massive. Bruges to Heidelburg in Germany was apparently going to be around 600 kilometres – a journey that would take at least 6 hours! Was not looking forward to that and had a mad panic in the morning trying to find my travel sickness pills – have no idea how they got into my main backpack instead of my day pack, but they did! Kept the bus waiting about 10 mins as I frantically searched for them, which probably wasn’t the most helpful thing in the world and annoyed Richard who thinks that it’s all in my head anyway!

Because of the insanely long drive, Leighton kept us occupied by asking us to write down our pet peeves – the things that annoy the heck out of us – in a bid to make the group as ‘harmonious’ as possible! After trying to explain to Tomas (our resident Spanish Oz-buser) what the heck we were supposed to write in very broken Spanish on my part (you try saying “write down your pet peeves in Spanish”!) we all jotted down a few pointers which were then shared with the others- that was interesting!

We crossed the border just after 12pm and I couldn’t help but notice that Germany, just like Belgium, still looked remarkably like England – perhaps even more so than Belgium did – very green, with rolling hills mixed with flat plains. The most obvious thing I noticed was just how many trees there were – LOADS of them as far as the eye could see.

After a few hours we made a pit stop in a tiny German town called Landscheid (not Backerei as I first thought which apparently means Bakery!). Wasn’t much to see here – we stopped outside a little cafe and had a wander around – the place was deserted! Jana (our resident German Oz-buser!) told us that this was because they were all having their version of a siesta and that we all had to be quiet! Saying that, it was very pretty and we did see one German lady who opened her front door and just started waving at us shouting “hi, Americans, Americans”! We couldn’t be bothered to explain that we were actually a bunch of English, Irish, Aussie, Spanish and German and that in fact there were no American’s with us at all!

Getting back on the bus for a couple more hours, we passed through some of the most stunning scenery – the Rhine Valley was awesome. Driving into Heidelburg at around half 4 meant that this sort of scenery just got better and better. The town is so picturesque and built alongside the River Nackar – a tributary of the Rhine. Apparently it is the most in-tact town in Germany after WW2 with a fantastically untouched Baroque cityscape. Our photographs really couldn’t do this place justice.

Richard and I spent a bit of time walking around Heidelburg and ended up in a bar by the side of the river called Nectar (www.mynectar.de). Again, we wanted to live the cliché and bought a CurryWurst (German sausage in a spicy tomato sauce – as recommended by Mr Stannard – thank you James, it was AWESOME!) and beer (Welde No1 to be exact). Was so nice being sat there in the warm.

After that we went in search of some Reisling and bumped into a few locals (an American and a couple of students) sat outside a bar called Lennox. We thought, since they were living there and drinking in that bar it must be fine – and it was! I think I may have found my new favourite wine – go Reisling!

Also at the bar were a couple who had lived in Germany for years – Jean, who is originally Scottish, and Robert, a long-haired, cowboy hat wearing, ex-rocker from Texas. He used to be a roadie in the states and was also in the military as a helicopter engineer. Really friendly people with lots of great stories and they then recommended another pub for us to try out round the corner! I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called but apparently is an old student haunt. The wooden tables still had people’s names carved into them and the guy behind the bar was really friendly – teaching us all about traditional German food. We taught him a few things about England too (I hope).

Was a shame that we didn’t have much more time in Heidelburg – as really was a great place. Couldn’t stay out too late either as yes, another 8 o’clock start! This time on the way to the Czech Republic – Prague to be more precise! 500k journey again – very long! Went prepared this time though and wore shorts and stocked up on fruit, salads and water from the local Lidl!