Mannheim to Basel

After a couple of days with our friends in Mannheim, we trailed our cases to the nearby tramstop and headed off to the railway station in town.

Before we got on the train to Basel, we had a good look round the famous water tower in the centre of Mannheim. There are some lovely varying fountains at the foot of the tower. It was a beautiful park.

Nearby the water tower we were amused to see a sculpture on a nearby building at roof level, portraying a man walking along a spike sticking out over the roadway. It looked very realistic!


The high-speed ICE train to Basel was as quick and efficient as the others we had been on and we soon arrived with our friends in Switzerland. It was very refreshing to cross all these country borders without any of the formalities we have to endure when entering and leaving the UK.

We arrived in the late afternoon before the Swiss National Day. The celebrations would start in the evening, so once we had got settled into our friends' flat, we headed into the town to enjoy the party!


A local running club was offering food and drink under one of the main crossings of the Rhine. We enjoyed our food in the open air and watched some of the party-goers indulging in the local sport of swimming down the river under the bridge. The river flows so quickly that it would be impossible to swim upstream, and most folk didn't bother to put any effort into their swimming - just drifting along on the current.

Finally it got dark, and to giant barges moved into place between the three main bridge crossings. All three bridges were closed to the traffic so that people could stand across the whole road to watch the fireworks.

I've never seen such splendid fireworks and I managed to take many good photos, as well as many more that weren't so good! I've posted my favourite shot below, but you can see some more on my Facebook site here'

Monster Spider

One evening recently I was about to get out an envelope from the box and I monster spider was sitting there daring me to come any nearer!

It was not at all fazed by my relative enormity and sat there patiently while I got out my camera and took a couple of snaps. The one above is a bit out of focus but shows the scale. On the photo below you can even make out the hairs on its legs!

Amusingly, after I'd laid down my camera, when I returned to catch the blighter it had disappeared without trace! So it's still prowling round the house all through the night looking for its next meal!!!

Heidelberg Disputation

Nestling in the hills at the edge of the flat Rhine valley lies the town of Heidelberg. It sits on the river Neckar upstream from Mannheim. We began our visit with a ride on the funicular railway up to the mostly-ruined castle above.

The castle began life in the 13th century guarding the important river crossing in the valley below. But it was destroyed by Louis XIV at the end of the 17th century. Inbetween-times the castle watched over the meeting in 1518 between the Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli and the German reformer Martin Luther.

Of the sixteen points put forward for agreement, they agreed on fifteen, and even part of the sixteenth. But that last half-point of disagreement resulted in the meeting going down in history as a Disputation instead of an Agreement. Thus the two Reformations, German and Swiss, continue separately to this day.

The castle is also famous for the largest wine barrel in the world. Built in 1750, it held 58,000 gallons of wine, which is 220,000 litres. There was even a pipe running from the barrel which allowed the wine to be pumped directly to the King's Hall.


The cathedral down in the town square had a splendid new organ which was being played for the lunchtime recital as we arrived. It was great to see the beautiful stained glass windows and hear the music reverberating around the building.


We then drove farther up the river to the village of Hirschhorn where we had coffee and cake in the castle cafe, high up and looking out over the river. At this point there is one of the dams that raises the river depth for the barges that ply up and down the Neckar's river valley. Each dam has a lock to allow the barges to pass through.


We drove back to Mannheim along the winding road through the hills down to the flat plain of the Rhine valley.

Mannheim Sights

Sorry for the delay in continuing the story of our summer holidays in Europe.

Our host took my wife and I for a gentle bike ride around their part of Mannheim. It was a very calm and peaceful evening. We watched a couple of hot air balloons gliding by in the distance and then cycled round the lake in a large park. After we got back we sat and chatted in their garden until the stars came out overhead.

The next day, our daughter went into her friend's school for their exam results ceremony. She had been there before on a school trip so it was nice to go back and see the people she knew from before. But it must have been strange to go back to school after finishing two years at university!

To celebrate their exam results we lunched outdoors at the foot of the local communications tower in the above photo. From the observation level there was a splendid 360° view, although the window reflections reduced the photo quality. The view below of an empty barge leaving the River Neckar and entering a canal shows the size of the river traffic even this far from the North Sea. The Neckar enters the Rhine only a kilometer or so North from this spot. At the lower right of the photo you can see a bunch of children out for a paddle in a large canoe.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the local park, walking slowly in the 28° temperature. We enjoyed a gentle boat ride on the lake and were amazed at the size of the Carp in the water. Although feeding the fish was verboten, some folk in another boat were dropping food over the side. In their competition to get to the food the ducks and the fish churned the water into a maelstrom! You can get an idea of the commotion from the small version of the photo below, and will see more if you click on it for the full-size image.

Flying Frog

While looking at the frog photo on my previous posting, I realised that frogs are like moths and butterflies!

Not that frogs fly, although when that frog leapt across the grass it was airborne for a short distance!

No, I was thinking that frogs metamorphose from baby tadpoles into adult frogs. It's not at all the same process that moths and butterflies go through as pupae in the chrysalis. After all, frogs are amphibians, and moths and butterflies are insects!

When I began this Blog in April last year, I related my continuing journey into ministry to that of the moth or butterfly which develops from an unspectacular caterpillar into a beautiful adult.

Now I am wondering if perhaps the development of a tadpole into a frog is a more appropriate analogy! What do you think?