Mannheim - Shoes and Schnitzel

If you have been following this blog you will know that our original intention to travel to Prague was to take an over-nighter train that left from Cologne.  What we ended up doing, because it was the only option available, was to take an over-nighter from Mannheim.  Since we had to vacate the apartment in Paris in the morning, and we decided to take an early afternoon train to Mannheim, and thus have a little bit of time in that city - even though we knew absolutely nothing about it.  This was going to be a complete surprise.

The first surprise was that high speed train we were on - other than the group of children who sat right behind us and chattered excitedly the whole way - the trip went very smoothly in a very comfortable modern train.  Thomas saw the information board note that at one point we were traveling 300 Kilometers an hour! It hardly felt that fast because it was such a smooth ride.  I did a bunch of blog writing on that trip (the blogs posted yesterday).  The other surprise was a lack of WiFi on the train - I know we had WiFi on some trains three years ago, but this trip we've struck out every time.

First impressions of Mannheim was an industrial city, and after a little wandering that was confirmed.  Mannheim was the first German city to be bombed in World War I because of its industrial significance, and it was heavily bombed in the second World War for the same reason.  It was the home of Karl Benz, who lays claim to the first automobile ever to hit the streets (in 1885), and founder of what would become the Mercedes Benz company.  More surprising was this city's claim to be home of the world's first bicycle built by Karl Freiherr von Drais in 1817 and the world's first rocket plane built by Julius Hatry in 1929. Industry was what I noted first, but we soon discovered a place of great culture as well. Mozart spent a significant amount of time in this city which we discovered after seeing a flavour of ice cream in a local eatery called "Mozart" (Anna tried some and loved it) and a plaque that mentioned Mozart by the city square.  There was some kind of Arts School that we walked past and a lovely park near the old water tower that had Art Nouveau touches in the lampstands and water fountain (though being in Germany I should really have called this style Jugendstil).

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this city, as far as our immediate family was concerned, was the amount of shoe stores.  It seemed that everywhere you turned there were more shoe stores.  Given that three members of our family love shoes this was a very pleasant surprise, and indeed Beth ended up buying a new pair of Birkenstock sandals (with a lovely green strap) noting that the prices for Birkenstocks here were easily half of what one would pay in Canada.  We were wandering past all these shoe shops because we had a lot of time to kill until our train to Prague, and because we were looking for somewhere to eat.  As like all the other cities we've visited on this trip, the restaurants we walked past all seemed to serve foreign cuisine (in this case meaning Italian, Thai, Sushi, or American Burger chains).  Since the nice lady selling Beth the Birkenstocks could speak English I asked if there were any restaurants where we could get German food.  She wrote out the name and address of one and told us it was only an 8 minute walk from there. (Beth chuckled about German precision, not 5 minutes or 10 minutes, or even a short distance away, but a 8 minute walk!)

The historic Mannheim water tower and the fountain in the park surrounding it.

Much to our relief we discovered that Mannheim's city centre is laid out like a grid, like so many prairie towns and cities.  We simply had to find the corner of Q4 (they call this the chessboard city because of this layout).  Without too much trouble we found the Alter Simpl restaurant (on the main floor of a hotel with the same name).  It looked like an old European inn on the inside, complete with old wooden casks above the bar.  (When trying to translate the name I found our Alter means "old" but couldn't figure out the Simpl part) We were seated quickly and given English menus (a helpful touch) and we were all able to eat good German food!  I had sausages and sauerkraut, others had schnitzel and all of us had an enjoyable and filling meal - well worth the little bit of effort to find.

Interior of the Alter Simpl restaurant where we got some good German food.

A little more wandering, then some ice cream for dessert - this is where Anna was able to try the Mozart ice cream.  Finally as it was beginning to get dark we headed back to the train station to wait for our midnight train (23:59 technically).  We found a book store in the train station that had a small selection of English books and magazines, and since all our reading material was in the storage lockers with the rest of our luggage we picked up a few items and proceeded to spend the next three hours reading, wandering around the train station, or people watching.  I bought the brand new novel by Umberto Eco, partly because of his reputation for being an excellent writer, and partly because of the title "The Prague Cemetery" (which seemed appropriate because of our destination - the Prague part, not the cemetery part).  Imagine my surprise when on the very first page I'm reading street names in Paris that I recognize because the book (at least the first part) is set in the Latin Quarter where we had our apartment!

So that's how our time in Mannheim ended, sitting in the train station waiting for our train to come in - sounds like some kind of a blues song.  The train was a whole different adventure, but that will be for another post.