Ikea and Decathlon are a lifesaver. Thought they might not be close by or easily accessible, one can get a ton of stuff from there.
As I just moved in Heidelberg, I had two Ikea’s close by, one in Waldorf and another in Mannheim. Which one did I choose ? None, I decided to go to Karlsruhe. It is just 30–35 mins away by a S-Bahn from the Heidelberg Hbf (central station). I think it was a great gamble. I asked around if any of my friends were free and can give me company and luckily, one friend volunteered. We planned to go there super early in the morning.
It was 9.48 am, I reached the Heidelberg central station 5 mins before the departure (I put too much faith on Heidelberg's public transport). We took the S-bahn for Karlsruhe. This is the first time we met in person. My companion was my exercise sheet partner for a course at the university. The 30 mins of travel time gave us a good chance to talk and mostly sit in awkwardness.
We had not planned anything, except a stop at Ikea and Decathlon at Karlsruhe-Durlach. The first thing on our impromptu agenda was to visit the ‘Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Karlsruhe’. It is a good museum worth the time and money; here are my highlights.
It took a solid 2 hours to tour the whole museum for which we paid €5 for entry (incl. student discount). Sooner our stomachs began to long for some Japanese. My friend quickly found out about an amazing Japanese place 5 mins walking from there: Min Ramen Bar, check out their Instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/min.ramenbar.karlsruhe/?hl=en
Feeling sleepy with a full stomach we decided to go to the Karlsruhe palace. To our luck, 12 pm on Fridays, entry is free in the the palace museum. Apart from the medieval art one stood out to me. A modern era high effort meme on a carpet.
Having filled our minds with food, nature and art history we decided to go visit our next and last stop, Ikea and Decathlon.
The decathlon was smaller than I expected. I wanted to buy winter clothes but their collection was limited to 4 shirts and 4 trousers. I just bout winter waterproof shoes. That was a totally bummer.
The discouragement was turned around as soon as we entered Ikea. Coming from a Ikea-less country of India (in 2021 India has two), I did not know what to expect. Ikea has surely figured out how to make people buy their products and make them walk.
Having bought all the stuff on my list and just one extra pillow, we called it a day and left for Heidelberg.
