The picturesque old town of Weinheim (Photo-essay)

Even early on during the day that I visited it, I had never heard of Weinheim.  But when my German friend suggested that we go and spend some time exploring that picturesque Baden-Wurttemberg town of approximately 43,000 people whose origins date back to the 8th century, I was game to do so. 

On her previous visits there, my German friend had gone up with other friends to Windeck Castle, whose ruins remain standing on a hill overlooking Weinheim, but she had not spent much time in the town proper. So much of the town remained as 'new' to her as it was to me -- and rather than have a fixed itinerary, we just decided to wander around and look about at -- and do -- whatever struck our fancy.

This brought about some unexpected results.  On the negative side, we were surprised to find the inside of the town's main church completely minus lighting when we ventured in there after dark (and soon gave up on our attempt to look for light switches as this was another place of worship that felt very creepy when not brightly lit!).  But much more happily, we also discovered that certain corners of Weinheim look wonderful at night -- a sentiment I hope you'll agree with after checking out the  two final photos in the following photo-essay... ;b

It's hard to miss the sight of Windeck Castle 

when strolling through Weinheim's Aldstadt (Old Town)

As I said to my German friend, the hill that the castle was on 

was calling to me -- not least because I suspected one'd get

nice views of the town from there

In the event, we didn't make it all the way up the hill 

but we still were high up enough to get lovely views like this :)

The younger (built in the 20th century, in fact!) 

Castle Wachemburg lies atop another hill overlooking Weinheim 

 We also didn't go up to it but, thanks to my camera's zoom lens,

I still managed to get a pretty good shot of that castle :)

While walking through Weinheim, we spotted 

St Nicholas going up a building even though 

there were weeks to go yet before Christmas!

The old market place at night is dominated by the church

that we went into, only to find it way too dark inside!

This beautiful building remains in use today

as part of Weinheim's Rat Haus (Town Hall)!