The Long Weekend

Friday morning I woke up very early at 5:45 to catch the 7:14 train to Heidelberg. Once there I went up the cable car that leads to the castle and I purchased a tour ticket so that I could see the inside. Unfortunately, on the cable car ride up I met a minorly creepy guy who asked enough questions to make me uneasy since I was on my own this weekend. I told him that I was meeting family at the top of the ride and promptly said goodbye to him and found a blond family to follow around for a while. I really enjoyed the castle tour since some of the rooms of the ruins were still in tact. Some, of course, had been repaired and redecorated by different architects, but being within completed castle walls was awesome. The tour guide told us the story that when people were invited to visit the resident of the castle it was common and polite to bring gifts. Therefore, the mote area of the caste which was eventually filled with dirt and then surrounded with a new wall was filled with a few lions from time to time. Just imagine waking up in the mornings and looking outside your window at your own personal zoo. I'm not really sure how I would feel about that, but I know it's not something I will ever experience. The next morning I woke up early again to visit the last parts of Heidelberg that I missed the first time or wanted to see again. I wanted to make sure that I had seen all of the sights on my list so there were not any regrets or wishes to have changed what I did. Walking around in the morning was also much nicer because the streets were not so crowded and moving was possible. In the early afternoon I hopped on another train headed to Rudesheim. Once I got there I was faced with the problem of finding my hostel. I followed my very blurry map as best I could, and Google Maps said it would only be a 20 minute walk so I wasn't worried. However, as soon as I made my way from the train station past the largest town streets, I reached a mountain. From the maps I could see that the town runs lengthwise along the river. What I learned very quickly was that the reason the town does not go further into the land is because the giant steep hill covered in a vineyard is in the way. Based on my map, the hostel was somewhere in the middle of this vineyard quite a ways up the hill. What I also learned is that Google maps does not take into account the land's topography in its calculated walking times. Thus my 20 minute walk turned into a 40 minute hike and stair climbing exercise. I did meet a nice lady at a three way fork in my path who helped me choose the correct windy path up the mountain. Once I committed to the fact that I was going to have to climb this thing it was not so bad. Whenever I needed to take a break, turning around rewarded me with one of the most gorgeous views of the river I have ever seen. That made it worth all the effort. After checking in, I went into town to explore. The next day, Sunday, I hiked across the mountain to St. Hildegarde's abbey and attended church there. The nuns sit in a side section of the church so that they cannot be seen by visitors. They sang the most beautiful songs I have heard a choir sing. These songs were some of Hildegarde's compositions and were still read out of a hymnal in which the music is written down in an old form that has only four lines on a staff and none of the usual note symbols that we have today.