On a more relaxed pace, we drove and visited two beautiful towns near where we were staying in Weinheim.
Beautiful rose covered house in Schriesheim. Roses are so plentiful and beautiful in Germany.
After the hectic pace of the first day of sightseeing, we decided to take it easy and adopt a more relaxed pace. We drove to Schriesheim and had pastry and tea for breakfast at Riegler in Schriesheim. It was a small town, and the pace of life was slow on a weekend morning. We strolled through the beautiful streets and stumbled upon a charming house covered in roses. It was absolutely beautiful.
German roses. Olympus E5 at f/4, 108mm (35mm equiv), 14-54 mm lens
We then drove over to Ladenburg, only some 10 minutes away. This was a bigger town. There was a Mercedes-Benz vintage car festival by the river on and we headed in looking for that elusive bratwurst stand. We’d thought German towns would be sporting bratwurst stands and restaurants around every street corner so imagine our surprise when we didn’t encounter any during the first day in Mannheim, Schwetzingen and Heidelberg. We finally had our beer and Bratwurst lunch at the festival, ogling at the sexy vintage Benzs on display.
The Germans really love to garden, even on a window sill. There were roses and flowers all along the roadsides and houses along the roads.
After lunch, we headed into the old town centre and came across a mini beer festival in a back alley as well as a wedding at the local church.
Sexy Benzs all splayed out at Ladenburg under the fantastic sunny weather.
When we got back to where we had parked the car, we found that the festival organisers had cordoned off the road for the obstacle race for the vintage cars. We tarried to watch the interesting display but realised that it was going to last till evening. Fortunately, the organisers were kind enough to lift the cordon to let us drive our car out since it was parked just inside of the white tape.
Charming timbered houses at Ladenburg under the summer sky.
Back at the hotel, we took a nap before heading out to the old town quarters of Weinheim. The good thing about long summer days in Europe is that you get long daylight hours to do the sightseeing. The flip side is you’ve got to get up real early or stay up real late to see a sunrise or sunset. Daylight here in southern Germany is from 4:30 am to 9:30 pm.
Weinheim Rathaus (Town Hall) in twilight. Taken handheld with an Olympus E5 DSLR.
The old quarters of Weinheim sits at the top of the hill. There was some memorial service in the park with people wearing 18th century uniforms and guskets, after which they marched into the charming town square.
It was rather crowded and I had to lift the camera above their heads to get some snapshots. The articulated LCD screen of the Olympus E5 came in really useful here, because it allowed me to frame the shot on the LCD panel which I folded downwards so I could look at it in live-view mode even though the camera was held high up.
Twilight memorial at Weinheim Schlosspark. Taken handheld with an Olympus E5 DSLR.
By now, it was getting dark. The night-shot capability of the E5 also excelled. Focus was fast even in live-view and the picture quality, even at ISO 1600 was really good – sharp and with little noise.
