Bike tour to the Hockenheim race track

Today we went for another bike tour towards the Hardtwald - the forest on the sandy soil in the Rhine valley south of Schwetzingen. This time we wanted to check out the area around the Hockenheim race track the site of Formula 1 races and other car and motorbike events.

On a grassy area close to the race track Mia spotted a fox

Unfortunately we didn't have a camera with a telephoto lens

There are many biking and hiking trails in the forest

The 80 years old race track was made smaller a few years ago. The former east curve is now a quite forest clearing

Rothenburg op der Tauber

Our next trip went 2 hours East - to the romatic town of Rothenburg op der Tauber in the west of Bavaria. With all the foreign tourists gone we thought it might be a good time to have a look at the city

 The main square

A tourist shop with Christmas decorations

Another fountain

 A walk along the old city walls

Traben-Trabach

We thought it is time now to try a bit longer trip and decided to explore the Mosel valley a bit. The scenic river valley that is famous for it's wine could also be a destination for a mini vacation but since the weather forcast was not so good we just went there for a day.
Our destination was Traben-Trabach a small town about two hours from Heidelberg

 From the town we hiked into the wine yards

On top of the mountain - Mont Royal the site of a former French fortrtess - was a small airport

Walking back we were a bit hungry

We had a small dinner - but not before Mia explored some art work

Luckily non statue toppled over

The Old Stone Building Set

An old friend of Mia from elementary school who has moved to the next town came froa visist. He still remembered the old Lego train set and the even older stone building set he played with a few years back.
I had to bring it from the basement so they could play again

The stone building set is more than 100 years old

The old Lego train

From Dossenheim to Schriesheim

We always wanted to try the hike from the castle ruins in Dossenheim to the castle in Schriesheim. O a hot day we rode our bikes to Dossenheim and then walked up to the 500 year old ruins
The view south was towards Heidelberg

 For the 5 km walk to Schriesheim  we picked the route through the forrest

We had dinner at the restaurant in the castle overlooking the town

On the waz back to Dossenheim where our bikes were parked we picked the lower route through the wineyards.
Some cherry trees looked really goods

 Dossenheim