Rest and recuperation – and more ice-cream in this relatively bigger city.
Our 5 weeks-old hotel in Heilbronn. Photo from www.hotelbb.de.
The hotel we were staying in was only 5 weeks old. Though it was named B&B Heilbronn, it was really not a bed & breakfast establishment at all! It was a new branch of the B&B chain of hotels with more than 210 hotels in Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and France.
The historical astronomical clock at the City Hall was an amazing mechanical clock that could tell time, AND day of the week, the month and the moonphase. Taken with an Olympus E450.
The family room we were in comprised one double bed and a double-decker bed for the kids. I had remembered how excited the kids had been with the bunkerbeds we had had in Kurashiki – Japan and thought I would give them the same treat. It was like having a playground right in the bedroom, with the kids clamouring up and down the ladder.
The dim lighting within Saint Killian's Church was a test for the low light capability of the Olympus E5 which passed with flying colours. This handheld snapshot had little noise or grain.
Everything was still so new and the hot water shower was just as shiok as that in the previous hotel – it was real hot and there was no lack in water pressure.
Another impressive low-light shot of a vase of roses in the church. Very little noise and grain even at ISO 1600. Taken handheld with an Olympus E5.
Self-service on-the-spot room booking and checking-in kiosk at the entrance of the hotel.
The hotel had an interesting concept, no physical keys were used for the rooms. Instead a number code was issued upon check-in for the electronic combination lock on the door of each room. The code was also used to enter the hotel lobby after hours at night. The cleaners came every morning but there was no need for check-out – you would just disappear since there was no key to return.
If you were a walk-in guest, and the receptionist had already left, there was a computer terminal between the external and internal (locked) door of the hotel lobby for you to check for room availability, pay using a credit card and receive a number code for a room. Everything was automated and self-helped.
While we were there, someone actually used the self-service kiosk to book himself a room at the hotel.
For in-room Wi-Fi, simply connect to the hotel’s network and register with your mobile number on the log-in page and the password is sent to you as an sms in an instant – even for an international number.
As it was a public holiday – what they call a bank holiday – everything was closed except for the church, the train station and the eateries. We walked around town and along the river, and then came upon this ice-cream parlour that was doing business like there was no tomorrow. The queue for people buying ice-cream cones for take away snaked more than twenty metres, while the seats in the parlour and al fresco were full. This Eiscafe Dellarte must be a famous and popular outlet. The banana splits and strawberry bowls looked really delectable. As expected, we stuffed ourselves silly.
Mouth-watering concoctions had people downing ice-cream dishes despite a chilly temperature.
Long queue at the Eiscafe Dellarte for take-away ice-cream cones. The cafe is open from 1100 til midnight.
