Like I promised, some more photos from Germany.

Since our accommodation wasn’t too far from Heidelberg we decided to go there for a day to do some sightseeing.
Everyone that had been there and told me about it was quite enthusiastic and the others liked the idea too. We weren’t disappointed.
The first impression we got when driving into Heidelberg was simply that of a very busy city in which traffic is a mess. (Isn’t it always…)
It took us a while to find a good parking spot, but once we found one and we got out of the car the fun began.

Heidelberg is the home of quite a lot of churches of which we’ve seen several.
The styles in which these churches are built are very different from each other.

The Heiligegeistkirche, in which the Heidelberg catechism was signed, is a very old church. It’s quite dark inside (which is the reason I didn’t make a lot of photos) and the first impression is one of a thirteen-in-a-dozen old church.
Once you start looking around you’ll notice a few odd things which make this church really fun to walk through.
The most remarkable are the leaded glass windows of which most of them appear to have no connection whatsoever with the bible, which is something they usually do in these kind of churches.
I’ve added a photo of one which I found particularly interesting.
If you look at the window the first thing you really see is the text. Since I can’t read German I usually skip reading the text and just look at the rest of the window.
Now once you take a closer look at the window you can see something really odd. It says ‘E=mc²’ somewhere halfway the window. This is a formula that Einstein thought of with his theory of relativity (if I’m correct).
This made me wonder a whole lot why this was placed on the window.
The text didn’t really clear it up a lot, it says something like: Gods grace will never leave you in times of trouble. (This is a very simple translation, my German isn’t the best.)
The date at the bottom was quite clear though, this window remembers the second world war.
I still have no idea what Einsteins theory has to do with this exactly though, but it’s quite fun to see.

One of the other churches, a Jesuit church, is completely different from the Heiligegeistkirche.
The style in which it is build is very different, with much more expensive ornaments.
It is a very beautiful building, both from the outside and from the inside.
The inside of the church is very light, which made it a lot easier to make some photos.
As you can see on the photos this church contains a lot of gilded ornaments, as well as huge wall paintings with vivid colors which really stand out from the white walls.

Of course there’s a lot more then churches alone in Heidelberg.
For example the castle on top of the hill is really something to visit.
I don’t really have any good photo’s from the castle itself as from down below it was really hard to find a decent spot and the photos I made while we were in there just aren’t really good.
I’ve made some photos from the city from up there though and those turned out quite nice.

– Heidelberg – Jesuit church – Heidelberg – Jesuit church – 19-Aug-2008	– Heidelberg – Jesuit church – Heidelberg – Jesuit church – 19-Aug-2008	– Heidelberg – Jesuit church – Heidelberg – Jesuit church – 19-Aug-2008
– Heidelberg – Jesuit church – Heidelberg – Jesuit church – 19-Aug-2008	– Heidelberg – Heidelberg – 19-Aug-2008	– Heidelberg – Heiliggeistkirche – Heidelberg – Heiliggeistkirche – 19-Aug-2008
– Heidelberg – Neckar – Heidelberg – Neckar – 19-Aug-2008	– Heidelberg – Heiliggeistkirche – Heidelberg – Heiliggeistkirche – 19-Aug-2008	– Heidelberg – Heidelberg – 19-Aug-2008

E=mc²