Kaiserslautern - Day 2

 

This morning I walked to work with Brandon.  Here's the office building, and of course, John Deere equipment in the parking lot!

I guess they don't want people driving in this sidewalk.  If these aren't here, cars are pretty much allowed to go anywhere they want from the looks of it.

Another fountain.

I guess they don't like mail as much as I do.....

Just a cool little walking tunnel along the road.

This big beautiful building is across the street from the tunnel.  I have no idea what it is.

 

 

This memorial caught my eye when I was walking past it.  The big columns are reconstructed at the entrance of what was a synagogue from 1886 to 1938.  When they were forced to leave.  Throughout the next 7 years, over 200 Jews died in concentration camps and their scrolls and building were completely demolished.   This memorial was built in 2003.  Here's a website with more information.

In the picture on the right, you can see a small column with steps.  There are several of these around the square.  They each have a view finder.  They show you what the synagogue looked like.  Thankfully, I was able to take some pictures through the viewfinder with my phone so you can see as well.

 

 

 

This was a gorgeous synagogue and it reminds you of just how devastating World War II was.

This afternoon, I decided to go fabric shopping.  This is their button wall. I just LOVE it!  What a great way to find the right button for a project!

Here's a picture of the shop.  I love the stacked up fabric for looking at, but it was cumbersome to get the bolt from the bottom out.  Of course, I had to buy some.....

I thought the boys would like the graphic art in this store!

From the shopping we have done, most stores do not have any sort of plastic bag to put what you bought in.  You must bring your own.  We knew this, but Brandon's coworker told us that you couldn't take shopping carts out to the parking lot, but she forgot to tell us this before we went in and shopped.  We loaded up on LOTS of chocolate to bring home.  I can only imagine what the Germans thought of us.  Especially, when we got to the parking lot and saw cart corals.  Ha!  What a fun trip to Globus!

Kaiserslautern, Germany

 
Today's plan is to try and find the rental car place.  Rent a car and drive towards Metz, France.  I thought this really old building with a cable dish on the balcony looked funny.

A few pictures walking around Kaiserslautern.

I walked over this bridge and saw these small houses down by the train tracks.  It looks to me like this is a slummy part of town, but what really got me was that they had all of these solar panels on top of their houses and garages even though it wasn't necessarily the nicest place to live.

 
Here is a picture of people moving out of an upper level apartment.  I'm sure the stairwells are very narrow, so they are dropping everything down to the ground using a pulley system.

 
Yes, this is how every street looks.  The cars park on the sidewalks and then there is only room for one car to go down the center.  The Germans seem to be amazing drivers as they can get their cars into almost any location and get it back out, even with crowds of people walking there as well!

Okay, so the car rental place wanted to charge me 3 times as much showing up in person as they would have if I would have reserved it an hour before from my hotel.  I decided to stick around K-town and see what else I could explore today.  One of Brandon's coworkers with was going to take us to this fountain the night before, but we all decided to call it a night instead.  It's quite an integrate fountain and really cool to see.  I'm sure the kiddos would love running through this!  This one is called The Emperor Fountain.

 
Here is another fountain a little closer to our hotel.  There are a lot of fountains in this town.  This fountain is in St. Martin's Square.

This mask statue is outside the New Palantinate Theatre.

Pretty butterflies hung around town in the trees.

The entrance to The Japanese Garden.

 

 

This is a gorgeous place.  It is one of the largest Japanese gardens in Europe.  It was a great place to sit and read a book and enjoy the peaceful setting.  I will return to this next time I'm in K-town 

I'm not sure what this place is, but I thought it was funny that they were rebuilding "ruins".

Another fountain.

This is Schillerplatz, I think.  It was fun to see this street sign after being away from home for so long.  It has the distance to Washington D.C. as 6,869 km.  Of course, there is a fountain in the background as well.....

 

I've seen a few street musicians, but I never expected to see a violin and an accordion.  It was great!

Heidelberg

 

Trying to find the train station again today.  The big lot outside of our hotel transformed overnight into a beautiful farmers market.  I just wish I had time to shop before catching a train.

These are both soccer statues.  Kaiserslautern has a football club and a huge following.  

I found the train station!

After one train broke down and I had to switch trains and platforms, I finally made it to Heidelberg..only an hour or so after scheduled.  Look at ALL of these bikes parked at the train station.  I have no idea how you find your own when you get back from a trip!

Across from the train station there is this huge horse statue.

The visitors center here was very helpful.  They told me which bus to take and where to get off and this is what I see.  I guess it's time to start walking up.....

 

After seeing Berg Eltz, I'm shocked at the sheer size of this castle. I only walked around the grounds at this castle, but that took plenty of time as it was. 

 

Obviously, this castle has seen war.

This is the view from up here. You can see the church and the old bridge.

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Yep, those are the steps I just walked up!

A few more pictures of the castle grounds.

This is a statue in the old town.

Lots of people and really cool buildings.

Here is a picture inside the church.

This is the old bridge you could see from the castle.  It is a pedestrian bridge (at least during the day!)

This is one of the statues at the entrance onto the old bridge.

A view of the castle from the bridge.

The streets are VERY narrow in places, but that does not stop cars from driving on them!

 
This one is very narrow and has a sharp turn in the middle of it, so there is a bent mirror on top of a big sign for drivers to see slightly around the corner to see if they can go.  We saw this a few places on our way to Berg Eltz on Sunday.

Today was a very stressful day for me as my train broke down on the way there and I was really worried about catching the right busses back to the train station and getting on the right train again to get back to Kaiserslautern in time for dinner. I could have spent more time exploring Heidelberg, but the first bus I saw going back to the train station, I caught just to make sure I'd make it back.  I think I would enjoy this town more if I was able to relax and explore some of the shops and bakeries.