Thursday, august 4

We spent the morning visiting one last castle in the Rhine River valley before heading to our next destination.  The Rheinfels Castle sits on a bluff high above the town of Sangt Goar, and it's the largest castle on the Rhine.  Well, it used to be.  Dating back to the 13th Century, much of the castle has deteriorated and no semblance of civilization remains, but it's still a fascinating place to visit.

We enjoyed wonderful views of Sangt Goar from the top of the castle.

When Hirsh took a self-guided tour through the dark castle cellars, these adorable children had lots of fun hiding around corners and jumping out to try to scare him.

After Rheinfels Castle, we headed toward our next destination of Heidelberg, with a stop along the way in the town of Mainz.  Mainz is a thoroughly modern town without too many historical sites, but it is known for the uniquely beautiful blue windows in St. Stephan's church.  Intended to symbolize the reconciliation between the German and Jewish communities, artist Marc Chagall began creating the blue stained glass windows in 1978.  They create a spectacularly stunning and peaceful atmosphere, unlike anything we've ever seen.

After Mainz, we drove to the vibrant university town of Heidelberg.  At this point, it had been raining for the past three days straight, but that didn't stop us from spending several hours walking around this wonderful city.  If we thought Bologna, Italy was a great place to study abroad, this place really takes the cake.  There's a beautiful park along the river and a mile-long pedestrian street filled with boutiques and trendy bars and restaurants.  Even in the pouring rain, we loved this city.

Still not ready to brave traditional German cuisine, we had a delicious kebab dinner at a hip restaurant called Safari.  While not traditionally German, kebab is becoming de facto German because of the huge Muslim population in this country.  It was one of our favorite meals so far!