After a good night sleep, we all awoke much refreshed. I was up early and spent some time downloading photos and doing the day one blog post. (In the bathroom, of course, so I didn’t wake anyone else.) Suzanne got up a bit later and Kyle slept until 8:00 or so. (Since we all went to bed around 9:30, this mean Kyle slept almost 11 hours.) We were a bit rushed, but managed to make it to the Hauptbahnhof (main station) in plenty of time for our 9:45 meeting with Joanna and Job. After grabbing some breakfast (McD’s for Kyle and Suzanne and a bakery for me), we bought our “Happy weekend ticket” (good for up to five people anywhere in the country on slower regional trains for ?37) we hopped aboard the waiting train bound for Heidelberg. This was one of, if not the oldest, train we’ve been on during all of our travels in Germany. I was afraid it would be packed, but it wasn’t so busy.

After the 90 minute train ride, we hopped a packed bus to travel to the altstadt. I had heard the market extended from one of the old town to the other. This was only sort of true. While there were markets in several squares, there were well spaced and the total size wasn’t that great. We did have a nice walk through the city, ate some good market food, collected our Heidelberg Weinachtsmarkt mug, and did a bit of shopping on the side. Kyle also very much wanted to see a castle. While there were couple on the train ride in, he wasn’t very impressed with them, but was awed by the one over Heidelberg. All in all, it was probably worth the ride each way, but I definitely wouldn’t go out of my way. (Also, it was weird hearing so much English spoken. Admittedly, we were speaking English, but … )

Once back in Frankfurt, after a ride during which most of slept to some degree and during which the police showed up in Darmstadt about a passenger incident with the conductors), we made plans to visit with Joanna tomorrow evening for dinner before they went back home. We headed back to our hotel to a restaurant that was supposed to be around the corner and had cheap, decent, Italian. It wasn’t there, but we did find the other location (perhaps they moved?). It wasn’t where I had it on my map but was at the address I had listed. The restaurant (Zimt + Koriander) was pretty good and we were well treated. Three drinks (one beer, one soda, and one juice) and two pastas and a pizza came to ?26.90. Finished with dinner, we headed back to the hotel so Kyle could have a bath and Suzanne could have a shower. Overall, we had a very nice day.

Tomorrow we have plans to visit our friend Christoph and his family about 30 minutes south of here in Frankfurt. Aside from having to catch and early train (9:10) as they have a family event in the afternoon, we very much looking forward to it. We’ll likely hit the market here again tomorrow afternoon and then head to Joanna’s for dinner.