Day 4: Schwetzingen and Speyer
After our usual leisurely breakfast we hopped in the car and drove to Schwetzingen, a village south of Mannheim. There we went to a castle that was once the summer residence of the family that had lived in the Mannheim castle. Our lackadaisical attitude cost us today as we had less than an hour to walk around the castle grounds before the tour started at 1:00. The grounds were a mix of very sculptured landscaping and forest. Absolutely beautiful. The tour was conducted in German so again Peter had to translate for me, but I still enjoyed seeing the rooms and learning about aristocratic life in Germany in the 1700s and 1800s. After the tour we had a relatively short lunch at a cafe near the castle, then hopped in the car to head to the main attraction of the day, Speyer. Speyer is home to a cathedral that was built in the 1100s. The houses and shops around the cathedral were "only" 400 years old, but they had that charming look that one expects of the "Old World." It is almost unfathomable to an American that any city could be so old, so I was impressed to the point of being overwhelmed.
As for the sights, the cathedral was large but was not ornate as cathedrals built in later centuries, which made it feel more pious to me. In addition to the main chapel and altar, Peter and I saw the crypt where 8 Holy Roman Emperors are buried, and we saw a special exhibit on Edith Stein, a philosopher who (if I'm interpreting the German correctly) converted from Judaism to Christianity at the Speyer cathedral, fled to the Netherlands when Hitler rose to power, was later captured and died at Auschwitz, and decades later was canonized by the Pope as a martyr.
After seeing the cathedral, we did not have time to go to the Historische Museum der Pfalz (Historical Museum of the Pfalz region), which was having an exhibit on Napoleon. Instead we took a relatively quick coffee and cake break at a cafe on the main street opposite the cathedral, then met up with Peter's best friend Stefan. The three of us went to a real Biergarten, where I had my first Hefeweitzen (wheat beer, also called weiss bier in some parts of Germany). I think that was the best beer I've ever had in my life--tall and rich. If I should marry a man half as good as that beer I'll be a lucky woman. ;) Seriously, though, it was nice to sit outside and talk and drink. We also had Flammkuchen, a white pizza on a thin crust popular in the Alsace-Lorraine region. After we finished our beer we walked to another restaurant that overlooked the Rhine. Stefan has a special interest in boats so as they went by he was able to describe exactly kind of boat it was and even what it might be carrying; I thought that was pretty neat.