We are visiting our friends Hans-Walter and MaryBeth in Heidelberg, Germany for a few days before heading down to Freiburg, which means we are enjoying good company and eating well.Today, Elias, Stefan, and I hiked up the Koenigstuhl (the local mountain or hill, depending on your standards) to the Max Planck Institut fuer Astronomie to meet Hans-Walter for lunch. We arrived an hour late because we got caught in a thunderstorm and had to hunker down in a shelter for about 30 minutes before continuing on in the rain. The sun emerged just as we reached our destination, but by then, Hans-Walter was late for a meeting, so we didn't get to see much of the Institute. We did enjoy seeing this lovely, late 19th-c. gate to the Sternwarte (observatory). I photographed it at an imposing angle, as the gate looked somewhat less elegant with the big recycling bin in the background.
