First up…the Technik Museum Speyer!

[flickr]photo:2431091057[/flickr]

See, there it is. Speyer. 12 euros to get in. 2 euros for a worthless English guide book (It’s a copy of their website…).

Speyer has collection of old vehicles. Cars, trains, motorcycles, airplanes, and boats. I was interested in the U9 submarine, Antonv AN22, & Boeing 747. I hadn’t been in any. They also had a model train area. I put in the 1 euro and all the kids loved it! The parents looked at me as if I had betrayed them as I’d seen one take out his wallet and shrug… it was worth it!

So here they are: Me on the wing of a Boeing 747 [flickr]photo:2431091305[/flickr]

and me inside the U9 [flickr]photo:2431092015[/flickr].
Subs aren’t built for tall, or wide, people.

The Antonv is huge! I took this picture peeking out the top observation bubble [flickr]photo:2431907652[/flickr]

Here you can see the Antonv just before I enter a Russian helicopter [flickr]photo:2431091561[/flickr]

I was at the Speyer for a few hours, and got lunch. No english speakers for lunch! I asked if I could see the things under the covers…and the lady was showing lots of soup. But at first I think she thought I insulted her, which if I did, I don’t really know. She said Brat mit Pommes and I said Ja!

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Can you believe they charge 0.30 Euros for a packet of Ketchup?! Me either, I got a couple anyway… The sausage was tastey, so was the Pepsi.

I found the pay station for parking before I left…as it was Frei when I got there. The other museum on the grounds wanted another entry fee…so I passed. All in all, I’d not recomend Speyer…there’s bigger and better musems. From Speyer I headed to Heidelberg Castle.

… of course, it took a while to figure out where the exit really was, I ended up finally parking and following someone else out after a few minutes. I really need some better German translation book…the one I have seems to be missing several key words.

Heidelberg Castel!

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Wait..that’s not a castle… that just marks where I’m parked…4 stories down, on a huge pedestrian walk way that was miles long. I had to have a reference photo in case I got lost. I drove around for probably 45 minutes before I found parking.

The Castle I’m going to: [flickr]2431095451[/flickr]
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It’s a long long walk up to the castle from where I was… I was obvisouly dased in this photo as I had another mile go go straight up. I’m not kidding, it’s up hill, it’s steap. Hnt: When you come to the sign for the Gardens or the Castle…skip the gardens…it’ll quadrupple your walk to the castle.
Here’s the view from one of the resting points up to the castle: [flickr]photo:2431093179[/flickr]
Proof that I made it, and paid my entry fee: [flickr]photo:2431093589[/flickr]
In the courtyard area [flickr]photo:2431093725[/flickr]
I paid 4 Euros for an English Tour, and it was very wrothwile.
I’m in the tour waiting room area…it has stuff to read in English! [flickr]photo:2431094313[/flickr] and things to look at and touch. (*I didn’t touch anything)
You cannot just wander about in the castle. The castle has some issues…it was destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt, burnt, being rebuilt…
On the tour, you visit the library [flickr]photo:2431910580[/flickr]
Notice the lack of walls and ceiling. As I said, its seen rough times.

In one of the halls outside the main rooms [flickr]photo:2431910836[/flickr]

This is an image of the gun powder tower [flickr]photo:2431095177[/flickr]
..the fire mixed pourly with the gun powder causing a devastating remodel moving half the tower…

From the Royal Gardens, over looking the town and Rhein below the castle grounds

[flickr]photo:2431911702[/flickr].

If you’ll notice the church steeples to the left…and on upper left corner…I was parked about a mile further up from that. (just short of that second bridge in the distance)

The “Royal Gardens” don’t have much garden. It’s more like grassy area with trees. I think in the future they should build up the gardens again and put whats in the mock ups into the garden. It would be nice, otherwise..the gardens offer a great view of the valley below.

That’s it for Heidelberg and my sunday! It was a great day, nice and warm.

I headed back to my hotel as it was getting late. Heidelberg isn’t that far away…but my car got to 103mpg finally. I think I’ll limit myself to 85mph…anything over that really doesn’t feel safe in my car.