Ever since we left Italy at the end of August, we've had regular rain. It rained in Lucerne, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna, and Stuttgart. And it rained again today in Heidelberg. The rain was quite steady in Salzburg as it was for part of the time in Vienna. When we entered the Altstadt here in Heidelberg, it wasn't raining. But after a couple of hours, the rain fell very heavily.
During our travels on the Continent, rain never really affected us until we reached Switzerland. We had a downpour in Pisa which lasted no more than an hour. At Ephesus, we had about three drops of rain while we ate lunch. We did get rain in Venice but only at night and it didn't present a problem. We had carried our rain coats in our bags all the way from Australia and never used them until Venice. Since Lucerne, we've used them a lot. But today was different. Today's rain, once it started, didn't stop. This rain was heavy enough that it penetrated through to our clothing beneath the raincoats, and we literally got soaked.
We'd been on the hunt for any possible signs in the University of Heidelberg that my relative, Henry Thode (whose villa at Lake Garda we toured nearly three weeks ago), was remembered in any way. He was a Professor here in the 1890s, and I was curious to know whether there might be a small picture of him hanging on a wall or something similar. I knew it was a long shot, but I thought worth a try. We made several enquiries about the location of this institute. It seemed to be somewhere near a small church not far from the Haupstrasse. We found ourselves going round and round in circles. We couldn't find it. Then the rain came and made life more difficult. Once our inner clothing got soaked, we gave up the hunt.
A happy postscript is that our hotel room has a sufficient heating system for drying our clothes!
The Heiliggeistkirche, or Church of the Holy Ghost, has stood here for 600 years.
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