Heidelberg, January 2

New Years Day we spent on the train to Heidelberg to visit Christof & Cordula Dörfer. Christof is another former colleague of Gary's. They live in a little town, Bammenthal, just over the hill from the Heidelberg Castle.

I remember when the Dörfers visited Raspberry Island about 14 years ago, they were talking about their plans to build a house on a hill lot in Bammenthal to accommodate them and their four little children, and here is the result. It's a beautiful modernistic house, with lots of light and open spaces:

The Dörfer home

The dining area

The back garden

Now those four little kids that visited our island are grown and most have a boyfriend or girlfriend and a successful career (architect, doctor, classical music festival organizer, and one undecided as of yet). They've turned into lovely, good people -- very engaging and fun to talk to.

Christof and Cordula on the far end, and from left to right: their son Mattias, Elizabeth's boyfriend Robin, Gary, Christof, Cordula, their daughter Ellizabeth, their son Johannes, Johannes's girlfriend Sophia, and Sebastien (a cousin) (Missing from this photo is their daughter Rafaela)

The next day, we visited the grounds of the famous Heidelberg Castle overlooking Heidelberg and the Neckar River:

The former gunpowder tower, which was blown up by the French in the 17th century and never restored. The authors and painters of the Romantic period loved Heidelberg's ruined castle just the way it was. Even Mark Twain wrote about this tower.

We also spent the afternoon with a friend from Minneapolis, Anna Hampel (96) and her sister-in-law who lives nearby, but I failed to get photos!

Later that evening, Rafaela arrived home from spending New Years Eve with friends on the island of Föhr, just off the coast of Germany, up near Denmark. Because that's what kids here do: they go to these interesting, out-of-the-way places in Europe that we Americans have never even heard about, much less visited, and they don't even give it a second thought. Lucky kids! She told us about the New Years Eve tradition on that island: people dress up in costumes (she saw men dressed as chickens, for instance, and someone dressed as Donald Trump) and go from house to house, singing. The reward is a shot of schnapps. Sounds like an interesting place!

Rafaela and Johannes on our final night in Bammenthal

We had an all-too-short visit before heading back up to Lübeck, a six-hour train ride. Before I end this post, I have to show you a Dörfer tradition that I think I'll start doing, too. When Cordula serves a pastry, like apple strudel, she serves it with ice cream, whipped cream, AND vanilla sauce. This would work well for pumpkin pie, too, I think.