A Castle in the Hills of Germany

Karen took off the last two days of her month in Europe, which meant we had a little more time to do some exploring! With Melissa visiting, it was the perfect day to venture off base and check out Heidelburg.  It was also nice because it meant that I got to spend some time with both of them together. 

Heidelburg has a huge castle on the outskirts of town, so we headed there first.  We arrived around 10:00, which was perfect because it wasn't quite as crowded.  We spent about 45 minutes exploring the grounds and the garden, which are beautiful.  

The Olmsted Coin made it to Heidelburg!

Dreaming of that castle life.

 There are also some incredible views of Heidelburg outside of the castle.

We love the Olmsted Foundation!

To go inside the castle, you have to take the guided tour (12 euros), but it's totally worth it.   You can't take pictures, but it's incredible. Plus, you may get a snarky German tour guide like us, which will add a little spice to the tour.  Her dry humor and remarks such as "Do you have a question?" to anyone who even whispered while she was talking kept us on our toes!

We're going in a castle!

 The courtyard of the castle is pretty remarkable and I definitely recommend going in there, even if you don't go on the tour.

Our tour guide told us the world's largest wine barrel was located on the premises, so we made a bee line to check that out once the tour was over.   When we stumbled upon this wine barrel, we though we had found it. 

It wasn't until we rounded the corner and found THIS guy that we knew we were initially wrong.  This barrel is huge!!

Little me and a large barrel of wine!

So much wine!

After admiring the largest barrel of wine, we headed into town for lunch.

We stopped for lunch at one of the biergartens outside and it was perfect.  I feel like all it does in Ramstein is rain, so it was nice to get out and enjoy the sun!

And some good German food!

Sadly, we had to go after lunch because we had to take Melissa to the airport. It was definitely sad to say goodbye, but I'll be seeing her Thursday in Croatia for the Olmsted Ladies Trip!! Hooray!

Two random side notes:

1. Happy 29th wedding anniversary to these two love bugs!  Have a great day celebrating!  They bought a new mattress not even knowing that the 29th wedding anniversary gift is new furniture! It's fate!  xoxoxo

2. If you haven't watched the Netflix show Grace and Frankie, stop reading this blog and turn on Netflix.  I watched the second season which came out last week in a scarily amount of time (#evacuationproblems) and did not stop laughing. So freaking funny.

And, that's a wrap!