DAY 121 TUESDAY JULY 24 NECKAR RIVER

We could have spent another day at least in Heidelberg; it is just as beautiful as we imagined and the hotel was very nice with an excellent breakfast.  But we have a booking in Paris waiting today.  By booking on the InterCityExpress we were able to delay departure till 12.30, which gave us time to post home some souvenirs etc. (half the price of Austria) and go for a cruise on the Neckar River.

This was our ship  which did a 40 minute cruise for 7 euros each and this was the other ship which did a longer cruise and was full of teenage schoolkids.  It must have been excursion day in Germany because everywhere we saw teachers shepherding classes.

We had a quiet trip as the only class on ours was on the top deck.  This was the Neckar River which had a lock at each end of the town and it joined the Rhine not far away.

It flows between two big hills as it comes into the town and the buildings and parks along the banks are very pleasant.

This is the pilons of the 1788 bridge and there is a small statue to the right, which is an ape.

And right next to this statue are two tiny ones.

They were life size.  This building was used for concerts and had rooms named after several famous composers who came to the town.  We saw an advertisement for a Tommy Emmanuel Concert, with a testimonial from Eric Clapton.

As usual the Crowning Glory of the town was the Castle after which our ship was named.

There were many uni students around, most riding bicycles on the excellent paths.  The cruise commentary told of many world leading research centres in the town and I think this one is the Max Planck Institute.

Today's temperature was up to 30 C and we were quite hot when we finally got back to Heidelberg Station with our luggage.  There we found this gentleman who wore the name Dienstmann on his cap. He must have been well liked and known around 1900.

Our Hispeed train crossed the border into France at 3.10 and pulled into Paris at 4.50.  It must have been hitting 300kmh.  We got in a taxiat Paris Est as we had no map, but our Hotel Cambrai turned out to be less than a kilometer away which mad the driver grumpy.  Our room is cheap but clean and basic.We will explore cautiously tomorrow.  Ken and Pam arrive here tomorrow night.