Manheim ...33 klms

Very easy ride & very hot. We really do have a heat curse following us. Today it was predicted to be the hottest day in recorded history for Germany. I don't know if it was achieved, but it must have been close. This afternoon in Mannheim the official temperature was still 38.4 degrees at 5 pm.
Yesterday in Heidelberg we were told it is the hottest town in Germany because of the surrounding hills. This afternoon I found a website showing the 20 hottest towns in Germany at hourly intervals, while sitting in our Mannheim hotel room,
where just by good luck, the air conditioning is not working. The hottest in Germany of course was Mannheim & Heidelberg did not even make the top 20 list. Just for good measure tomorrow is predicted to be 4 degrees hotter.
Todays photos are fairly boring.

 

Heading out again from Heidelberg for Manheim on a very hot day.

 

 

An old water tower in Ladenburg at morning tea time.

 

 

Town gate at Ladenburg.

 

 

This is kind of different, new & old collide, new homes built right into the old medieval city wall.

 

 

Another example of new meets old.

 

 

Pretty little creek just outside Mannheim.

 

 

These are electric horses that the kids hire & ride around the shopping centre.

The legs backward & forward, while the wheels have a one way ratchet.

I have included a short video of this below.

Short video of electric horses.

 

 

Cycling into Mannheim, tramway on our left, river on our right.

 

This is about a quarter of the enormous Schloss at Mannheim.

 

Hottest day in 10 years !!!

Yep thats right, hottest day recorded for 10 years in Heidelberg. Our heat curse is still following us around the world. Fortunately,  as it was so hot (hovering around the 40 degree mark) we chose to walk up the side of the steepest hill in Germany to look around the hilltop castle, photo from yesterdays blog. It was well worth the walk. Since nobody had yet died from heat stress we took the fanicular down & walked up the opposite hill over the river for the view back. By this time it was about 1.30 & we had enough heat & headed back to our lovely air conditioned room. We caught the un air conditioned, very crowded, fixed window bus home, it must have been about 50 degrees in the bus. But now while writing this we are cool cucumbers in our room. Today is my birthday.
(happy birthday to myself).

 

Looking down at the old bridge & township on the walk up to the castle.

 

On one of the side courtyards of the castle looking over Heidelberg.

 

Another view over Heidelberg with one of the 5 ABCs near the centre.

 

One of the more wrecked sides of the castle.

 

Looking directly over the Neckar from the courtyard.

 

Yvonne near some really old rock wall.

 

A 220,000 litre oak wine barrel, built under the castle walls. I couldn't fit it in the picture no matter where I stood.

 

A room showing the thickness of the outer walls of well over 12 feet. Although it was very hot outside it was cool & in the low twenties inside & under the castle.

 

A wrecked turret, damaged in one of the many wars since the 1200s.

 

Another side view of one of the more damaged areas.

 

Seen from further back in the palace gardens.

 

Heading down the steep slope underground in the fanicular.

 

Looking up river while crossing the old bridge.

 

Yvonne at the openings of one of the turrets off the courtyard.

 

Looking back from the courtyard at one of the more intact areas of the palace.

Heidelberg ...38 klms

Another very hot & fine day, in the high 30s. A very easy 38 klm ride with only some character improving hills & no character building hills.There were even long sections of downhill.
( character building = Everest climb equivalent )
( character improving = just as steep, but not as long )
 We are getting spoiled with these short rides, but they are very welcome with the current high temperatures.
We have air conditioned rooms tonight & tomorrow night, which is very welcome. It is difficult to find proper air conditioned accommodation. Last night the accommodation was great but very hot without A/C. No greatly exciting pictures today, just the usual lovely scenery. We will be spending tomorrow scoping out Heidelberg.

 

The now very familiar wheat & barley fields in fenceless paddocks.

 

Another great & shady forest ride.

 

Once more crossing over the 'Neckar' river.

 

A very pleasantly located caravan park on the rivers edge in the same location.

 

A small work barge waits for a lock to lower it to the down stream side. This is a double lock, photo taken from the dam wall that houses yet another hydro power station.

 

Approaching a village on the outskirts of Heidelberg. The cycle track again followed the river for much of the way.

 

Packing up after a river side lunch in a cool shady spot along the river.

 

The mandatory medieval castle that most towns seem to have. The compulsory 'ABC' is just out of shot to the right.

 

Part of the old city wall, built when life & labour were cheap.

 

Looking back across the river to a more modern part of Heidelberg.

Sinshiem... 42 klms

Very hot in the high thirties, fortunately the ride was quite short & the hills again quite character building, Yvonne having some difficulty in places, so I once again have 3 panniers, this time for the remainder of the journey. A tough morning with 2 flats in my rear tyre within the first 5 kilometres. Allison fortunately finally found a fine sliver of green glass in the tyre which you could not feel inside the tyre when checking, but must have poked through when my weight went on. I would never have found it with my crappy vision, but no more problems since then. We went to the Sinsheim museum on the way through. It is probably the best kept & most comprehensive museum I have ever seen. Containing planes, trains, cars, tanks, motorbikes & a thousand other things, with lots of special unique items. Everything was spotlessly clean. Accommodation tonight is quite special as we have our 4 rooms gathered around a common hallway, the units have all cooking amenities & other home comforts, so we all went to the Rewe supermarket & everyone cooked up their own delicious dinner, & sat around talking & drinking the cheap European booze.
There was a crap load of pictures I wanted to put up as there were hundreds of things I could have put in, but it would have taken all night to upload.
If you really want to suffer, come & see me when we get home & I can show you another 200 pics of absolutely unique stuff.

 

Confusion at the forest crossroads.

 

View emerging from the forest.

 

 The Sinsheim museum car park & yes that is a real concord in the top right hand corner on the roof & yes we did climb up into it.

 

A Canadair water bomber & we accessed  it from the stairs at the back, from the roof.

 

One of hundreds of very nice & clean cars.

 

Back to the future in a Delorean.

 

Something to use when shooting rabbits.

 

Lots of stuff.

 

A lovely Heinkel bomber.

 

There was well over a hundred tanks.

 

A Messerschmidt tri wheeler with pusher propellor, for use on roads & snow.

 

If you don't like pushing a big chain ring you will hate this racing bike from 1908

 

A high shot of more 'stuff'.

 

A whole road of tanks, planes, cannons, ballistic missiles & assorted other 'stuff'.

 

The Canadair, Concord & Russian Tupolev 144, you better believe we climbed up & into all of them.

 

Another view of more 'stuff'.

 

Here are another bunch of roof mounted planes. Notice the stainless steel tube coming out of one planes & disappearing through the roof of the museum, it eventually ends up on the ground floor of the museum. It is a slide & Greg & I tried it out. It was a VERY fast trip.

 

Concord, we entered via the spiral steps at the rear.

 

Loking up the guts of Concord.

 

Concord cockpit.

 

Inside the Russian TU-144 (concord equivalent). It is a much roomier & pleasant plane, but the cockpit is much more basic.

 

An interesting view over the wing of the TU-144.

 

A great angle of the underside of Concord.

 

Rear view of TU-144 & Concord.

 

A different aircraft. As the planes are mounted at interestng angles it is very strange walking in them. Yvonne is standing straight up & down.

 

This rocket car holds the world land speed record of well over 1000 km/hr.

 

Yvonne with a really big lawn mower engine ( I think ). The white thing on the right is the tail end of a submarine.

 

Walking down another lane of 'stuff'.

 

Yvonne reckons I can get one of these for a train set.

 

A really big working steam engine.