Time to leave Mainz behind and most of the German family with it! Chris and Sharon hopped into cousin Teresa’s tiny Citroen hatchback to be driven by Peter to Heidelberg for a quick tour. Peter is cousin Susann’s husband and owns Heidel-bike, a local bike shop. He took us for a quick visit of their home and on a short walk through the city center.
After 
crossing the old bridge across the Neckar river we saw the famous brass monkey sculpture. There was also another Christkindlmarkt in the town center that had a skating rink set up in it. 
More gluhwein! The Heidelberger Schloss ruin was, well, ruined but it still looked good from where we were.
We also popped into the ancient Church of the Holy Spirit and saw these bizarrely wonderful candelabras.
Then it was onward to the real destination of the day, Annweiler am Trifels, basically the family hometown and where Chris lived in as a teenager. He spent his freshman y
ear of high school living with his grandmother and cousin Stefan and going to the local (German) high school with Stefan, inaugurating the extended family’s own little internal exchange program that continued for years as cousins went back and forth across the Atlantic spending a year of high school overseas (Americans going to Germany, Germans going to America). Chris’s mother and her family put their roots down here in 1950 and it’s the family base.
After checking in at the small hotel in Annweiler, we met up with old family friends Herma and Guenther at their home in the town center. The house has been in Herma’s family for a century and is 400-something years old; Herma ran the family photo shop (film only) until two years ago. They spent many years restoring the building and are now retired and enjoying the fruits of their labor. After a nice meal, we head out for a long walk to see a few things in town while it was still light, led by the hard charging Guenther, a former policeman. We hiked up to the Waldfriedenstrasse house that Chris lived in (now no longer in the family since grandmother Omi/Ilse has moved to Mainz), and then over to the high school at the top of another hill. The castle Trifels sits high up and can be seen from all over the town. 
Then back to Herma and Guenther’s for coffee and homemade cinnamon waffle cookies. Peter departed for his return drive to Heidelberg (thanks Peter for shepherding us around!) and we headed out for last short walk around the town, passing by the church that Monika and Oliver were married in. We finally got back to the hotel for a long night’s rest and starting our serious planning of the last segment of this trip — Paris!