82 outandaboutlive.co.ukSeptember 2019
TRAVEL Germany
ABOVECLOCKWISEA street
in Bacharach with
celebratory wine crown
hanging; ‘Fish &Chips’
byBanksy atVölklingen;
Turbine hallat the
VölklingenIronworkshave no idea who placed the plaque there,
but we are sincerely grateful. We bought
some sunflowers and returned down the
sunlit avenue to tuck them around the
stone and pause a moment, thinking of that
picture of Oliver with his arm around his
mum, standing in the family garden.
It was in something of a reflective mood
then that we returned to our Chausson
and on to Neckargemünd in order to visit
Heidelberg and its famed castle. We pitched
up at Campingplatz an der Friedensbrücke
and took a place right on the river bank.
Neckargemünd once boasted of being an
imperial city. It’s pleasant, with some quaint
old streets running down to the river and
warped, half-timbered houses. Though it’s
possible to take a scheduled boat service
down to Heidelberg, or buses and trains,
we chose to ride the six miles along the
riverside cycle path.
Schloss Heidelberg is grand, though
mostly a ruin now, having been destroyed by
the French in the late seventeenth century
- despite the 5.5m-thick walls of the tower.
It’s situated high in the wooded hillside and
oozes Gothic Romanticism.
The garden terraces are enormous and
the views over the Neckar worth the climb.
The terraces are free to enter and, once
you’ve fought your way past the many
tourists clamouring to enter the castle, the
grounds are peaceful and pleasant.
Heidelberg’s town centre has grand
buildings and squares, its cafés and
restaurants seeming to cater mainly to the
river cruise trade. Lizzy thought the all-year
Christmas shop an especially good example
of its kind, set in a grand old building with
fine ceilings and staircases. A few doors
away is an equally well-stocked shop, but
selling traditional lederhosen and dirndls
alongside vicious-looking knives, swords
and crossbows that William Tell would have
given his right arm for!
After another day cycling in early-
autumn sunshine through attractive towns
alongside the Neckar, it was off to an
industrial world at Saarlouis. This wasa
visit to the sort of place that Oliver might
have been most interested in professionally.
We reached the centre of Saarlouis from
Campingplatz Saarlouis via the crossing
of Vauban Insel, a mid-river island made
up entirely of another of the seventeenth
century French military engineer’s
creations. The French had Vauban build it
when they occupied the area at that time.+