The trip ain't over until I've been to Erlangen!

The castle gardens in Erlangen
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So I’m back in Erlangen again and it’s the first time that I’ve seen it with leaves on the trees and had warm weather. I came back to catch up with Bosi and Vanessa before heading home from Frankfurt. 

I flew into Munich as it is really expensive to fly to Nuremberg and really cheap to catch the train back to Erlangen from Munich (and in fact only took me a couple of hours longer than flying the whole way). Vanessa came down on the train and met me in the airport in Munich and then we headed back on the train to Nuremberg. 

The botanical gardens in Erlangen
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We stopped briefly at her flat to pick up the car and then drove through to Erlangen and Bosi. It was really good to see them again though I must say that my German is nowhere near as good as it was a couple of years ago when I last visited. I’m sure that I know all the words, it just a retrieval problem. 

On Sunday we spent the day in Erlangen and I got to catch up with some of Vanessa’s friends who I knew when I was there as an exchange student and I got to see some of the areas that I knew well but when they have leaves and flowers (much prettier). 

Who knew that George Clooney made pizza in Erlangen?
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Monday we spent the day in Nuremberg (read the separate entry) but Tuesday we hung around in Erlangen again. I’d never been to some of the gardens in town (they are pretty dull in winter) so we went around in the sunshine to visit some of them. 

The aroma garden is behind the hospital complex (which is much bigger than I thought it was) and has lots of plants that are nice smelling or used for medicinal purposes. We were there maybe a couple of weeks early as not everything was flowering but it’s quite pretty. 

The meadow in Erlangen. I've never seen it with grass before
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Next we came to the Botanical gardens which aren’t very large but are very lovely. They have lots of bulbs in the spring and a huge collection of succulents and tropical plants in a couple of huge hothouses. There isn’t really anywhere to sit and have picnics or anything like that but is nice to walk around. If you want to sit around, it’s better to head to the next park which is behind the castle and has lots of grass and fountains. It was full of uni students (the buildings around the park all belong to the uni) enjoying the sunshine. We wandered for a little while in town and had a frozen yogurt before sitting a little longer to wait for Vanessa to finish work and come up from Nuremberg. Then it was a quick trip to the supermarket to get some food for the train (there aren’t any decent places to eat in the airport in Frankfurt - you can get some stuff in the train station on the way in though) and the airport for the next day. 

The next morning, it was a matter of getting up, finishing packing and then heading on the train to Frankfurt Airport and get on the plane home.