Sometime shortly after our move to Germany, someone recommended that we read A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain. The person said Twain gave some interesting commentary on the German language which we would be able to better appreciate now that we lived in Germany. I downloaded the Kindle book (it was free!) and it had been sitting there waiting for me to read it for several months. I finally opened it up and started reading. I am still in the midst of finishing it as I had to take a break to read this month's book club read (The Alice Network), but from what I have read so far it's a delightful book. His writing reminds me of Bill Bryson's style.
Anyway, in the book so far he has talked about visiting Heidelberg and Heilbronn. Charles and I visited Heidelberg as one of the stops on our honeymoon river cruise. We will be visiting again at least once while we're stationed in Germany because it is pretty close, but we have yet to make it over that way.
For one of our weekends this month, we were trying to find something to do. It has been a little more challenging with continued COVID restrictions, especially because of our incomplete vaccination status (incomplete with the new regulations here). I looked at the map and saw that Heilbronn was pretty close. We have driven by the Heilbronn exit many times, but I never really knew much about it. I suggested we take Suzie there for a walk and lucked out with a lovely sunny, albeit chilly, day.
Heilbronn sits on the Neckar River which is something Twain talked about in the book. When we arrived in Heilbronn we parked at the Wertweisen Park. If you have ever lived in Europe, you'll appreciate this next bit. Parking was free and abundant! Charles routed our walk through the park and up along the river into Heilbronn's downtown area. As we got closer to the city center, we came upon a bridge that goes over the river from one side of the city to the other. It was LOADED with locks representing relationships. I have heard of this in Paris and have seen it in other cities. We spent a few minutes looking at the multitude of locks. I was impressed to see that many of them were professionally engraved. It gave it a better sense of purpose and intentionality.
This tower was not far from the love lock bridge (that's what I am going to call it, at least). I read briefly about the towers in Heilbronn, but I am not going to attempt to give you their history because I don't remember it well enough. This tower had fun metalwork at the top so it looks like someone is walking a tight rope off the top of the tower.
Twain mentioned the astronomical clock in the book. It was neat to see it in person and think about how many others have looked at it over the years. Right in front of the clock was a Saturday market, but we happened upon it as it was winding down.
We spent some more time walking around the city center, doing some window shopping and watching Suzie scare pigeons into flight. We ended our stroll back through the park. It made for a great afternoon adventure.
