Chapter 131: Dubbelglas

nerd blog post #134

After Innsbruck, Steve and I took a long train ride into Germany, to visit friends of his grandparents in Heidelberg. Heidelberg is a small town with a large university population, a huge castle atop a mountain, and a very romantic feel. It's a big tourist destie in the Summer, though at this time of year was fairly quiet.

We stayed with Maria and Verner, an elderly couple with a lot of charisma and champagne. They were excited to meet us and we had a wonderful visit for 4 nights with them. As all of our hosts had done, M&V rolled out the red carpet for us. Arriving at 1030pm, we were expecting to just go to bed, but Maria had prepped a salmon dindins for us and a champagne toast. It was lovely. Steve and I had the upstairs apartment to ourselves, and it felt like a fancy hotely.

The next morning, we had a good breakie and then headed into Heidelberg with M&V. We walked down the long pedestrian street and ate lunch at a brewery restaurant. Verner is really into glassware, and it was here that we received our first presie - a big beer mug from the brewery. We then visited the castle and it's museum. It was cloudy that day, but the view was still pretty.

The next day, we headed into an area called Vels (or something) with M&V that is soooort of like the Niagara region. It had tons of fields of grapes and is a main wine region of Germany. We hiked up another mountain to another castle and had a great lunch up there. I have eaten some of the best meals of my life in the past few weeks. Sauerkraut is delish. We ended the day at a sort of beer garden of sturm, that amazing wine cider drink. At this land, there were tons of picnic tables all in a row, and people show up with their own food and then drink sturm and chat with everyone. It's basically perfect.

It was on this trip that Verner excitedly introduced us to what must be his fave glassware. It's called the dubbelglas, and is a pint-sized glass with dimples in it. He bought us two, and they have been a hit ever since. Das ist ein dubbelglas! I will take them back to Canada and you can try them and enjoy.

And on our last day in Heidelberg, Steve and I headed into the city alone and climbed up the mountain again. This time we didn't go into the castle, but walked around the enormous gardens and saw Heidelberg from up high. We had a nice last evening with our hosts and packed up our things, very excited to unpack for good here in Berlin.

Before signing off, I would like to wish a most wonderful birthday to Bronwyn M. Sorbie, and award her 400 points for not being mad that I'm absent yet again! Love you, boo.

Signing off,
Hincks.