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.