Sunday, 20 August. After breakfast we went to Mass in the chapel at Reese Casern and set out to see Augsburg. The city was founded by the Romans in 14 BC. We went through the old Gothic Cathedral originally built in 1065, then went to the center of town. Maximilianstrasse, the main street, had retained a definite medieval look (apparently by careful zoning regulations) with no new or tall buildings. The old Rathaus (1620) was very impressive.
We went through the Fuggerei (1519), a public housing development built by the wealthy Fugger family, the first of its kind. The building's interiors have been modernized and are still in use. We went through the one cottage that’s kept in its original state as a museum. It was interesting to see how people lived almost 450 years ago.
We drove around what had been the outside of the old Roman city. Much of the moat had been transformed into a stream surrounded by a beautiful park. Some parts of the Roman walls were left including the "Red Tower." We had lunch at the Fuggerkeller in the old Fugger family palace in the center of town. Jane made the mistake of ordering coffee which cost 3.50 marks (88¢) for a small pot, as much as all the rest of her lunch. We left Augsburg about 1400 hours.
At Stuttgart we pulled off the autobahn to take a brief look around the city. Driving quickly through the old town, we saw the home of the great German dramatist, Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). It had been a damp, cloudy day up to this time, but the sun finally managed to break through while we were there.
We found the Opera House and noticed some kind of fair in progress on the grounds behind it. It turned out to be a flower and garden show. We went in and walked around the beautiful and spacious grounds. In the parking lot we saw a Mercedes-Benz 190 station wagon, a rare bird, indeed. (The Mercedes factory is in Stuttgart.)
We had a little trouble getting back on the autobahn because the approaches were so poorly marked, but we finally found it. The autobahn ran through the black forest which we noticed was far from being a solid growth of trees. There were numerous small clearings. But the most impressive thing was the complete lack of undergrowth; the floor of the forest looked as though it had been swept. Although the leaves were perhaps a little darker green than average, the forest was not really "black."
It was dusk when we reached the Army's Mark Twain Hotel in Heidelberg, where we had reservations. This was the nicest Army hotel we had been to. After cleaning up, we went to the Molkenkur restaurant (formerly an Army club) on the Koenigstuhl (hill) above the Heidelberg Castle. In fact, the Molkenkur was built on the ruins of a much earlier (13th century) castle. Not realizing there was a funicular from the Kornmarkt downtown, we drove up a steep winding road to get there.
By this time it was quite late and we were almost the only customers in the place. We got a table by the window overlooking the city below, and the view was spectacular. We had a delicious meal. There were three or four kinds of meat on a spit, and it was served covered with a hot fruit and curry sauce. We went right back to the hotel after we finished.
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