Sledding and Schloss

The weekend started pretty uneventfully. After a lazy morning on Saturday, we met Sherry and Annika and went shopping. Our first stop was the open-air market where we got the obligatory weekly spinach and tomatoes, but I also picked up a kohlrabi (yum!) and even some fresh blueberries (clearly not locally grown, but oh well). We headed on to the butcher, because Alex who does not usually like sausages, had announced that he wanted me to buy him some. Well, when we got there, he - very sensibly - picked out turkey wieners. As we headed to the grocery store for the last things, Alex and Annika started making plans for after lunch: we would go sledding. It's certainly cold enough and though there is not a huge amount of snow on the ground, we hoped it would be enough for sledding.

It was. Alex and I headed over to Annika's around 2 and we immediately went out - two great wooden sleds in tow. She knew exactly where to go and after a 15-minute walk we were there: at a little hill on the banks of the Neckar. It wasn't very steep, but it was perfect. Here they are all bundled up on one of the sleds just before heading down the hill.

Alex, who had never been sledding before immediately took to it. After seeing him throw himself into it, I was glad that we were at a modest hill and not a more dangerous one, because he clearly would have hurtled down whatever hill appeared before him. Annika was wonderful with him. She showed him how to do it, where to sit on the sled, etc. She pushed him to get off to good starts, she rode together with him, showed him her little tricks, and even tirelessly helped him pull the sled(s) back up the little hill countless times. They had so much fun! And so did I, just watching them laugh and tumble, and slide down the hill over and over and over. At one point, they got into a little good-natured snowball fight and it was fun to see them just enjoy each other and the snow around them.

After it got too cold (and it was frigid, my friends!) even for them, we headed home to a steaming hot cup of tea and some pastries I had thankfully bought this morning before the bakery closed.

Sunday morning started with another trip to the gym to watch Annika's basketball team, but unfortunately, the other team had canceled at the last minute. They were to come in from Mannheim (ca. 20 miles away) and the roads were apparently too icy to drive. The kids and coaches decided to split into 2 groups and play against each other (there's probably a sports term for this, but I don't know what it is) and it was just as fun for us to watch them play each other. They were well-matched!

After the game, Alex and I took a longish walk and then several buses (have I mentioned that it is really cold here?) to get to the bottom of the hill that has the castle on it. Since we can see the castle from our balcony, I simply could not string him along any more - even with the cold weather. The whole excursion was a lot of fun, but also a trip down memory lane, because the last time we were here (summer of 2010) our dear friend Jeannette was with us (and she's currently somewhere in New Mexico as far as I know).

Well, the Schloss (castle) adventure began with a trip on the Bergbahn which is a short, but no less dramatic ride on a funicular which crawls up the steep hill. To say that Alex was delighted is a major understatement.

To take it to the Schloss requires only one stop, but since our ticket included the full length of the tracks, we initially took the Bahn to its highest point and looked around. Here's the impressive station at the top, outside and in:

Here's the view down the hill:

And here we are enjoying the ride:

Halfway back down the hill, we finally arrived at the castle. Though it is mostly (or at least partially) in ruins and I also decided not to take the 1-hr guided tour (we'll save that for another day), we had a blast and the "olden times" came fully to life for Alex. We imagined knights everywhere protecting the castle and it's inhabitants from various "bad guys" and just enjoyed wandering around the grounds.

Here is Alex in front of the outer gate and we are both full of anticipation.

Here are the knights and lions guarding the bridge tower. I should note that every time we saw a carved lion (and there were dozens of them), Alex compared their likeness to Mufasa (one of the main characters in the Lion King). The various worlds, medieval and modern, real and imagined coexist so easily in the mind of a 4-year old.

And here's the door of the bridge tower. Or at least part of it. At first Alex was a bit timid to pose for this picture until I figured out that he was scared the door would close and he would be trapped behind it, so I assured him this would not happen.

Here is the fabulous inner courtyard where we later saw a guy dressed in Renaissance garb. Alex was convinced that he was one of the knights who still lives here.

Since I had opted out of the official tour for today, we had to make do with the only indoor space available (to warm up a little and also to look around) and that was the German Apothecary Museum. Weird, but true. We looked at a lot of old flasks etc. and here is Alex on the stairs leading down to an old laboratory.

It had a special exhibit on the history of alchemy and chemistry with lots of evocative instruments and it would have been great fun to share the moment with our friend Hilary, chemist extraordinaire. Here's just a taste of what we saw. I have to say, I've long been grateful for the advances of modern science and medicine and definitely not nostalgic for the "olden times" but that impression was only strengthened after seeing all this medical and scientific equipment.

The visit to the Schloss would not have been complete without a beautiful piece of Blueberry Torte in one of its medieval cellars.

And a wooden sword for the newly-minted knight standing guard on a park bench outside the main castle.

The views were spectacular (in the distance you can even see our building and I would mark it, if I had the faintest idea how to do that on a photo),

and fun was had by all!