I am writing a book about homeexchange (with kids) - if you like to divide your experiences please contact me!

Dear intervac friends,

we live in a wonderful, terraced house with garden directly outside of the city of HEIDELBERG. The historical city center and the castle can be reached by bus in only 10-15 minutes and the train station in 20 minutes! The house is situated in a green area, surrounded by woods, sheep, goats, deers, monastery, public swimming pool.

We like this way of travelling very much and we are completely enthusiastic about it! During our last exchanges we made unforgettable experiences and we love the opportunity to be immersed in a culture and a country.

The weather in our region is mostly fantastic, warm and sunny - from April until September/October we have 20°, from June until August up to 38° - it is ideal for exploring cities and being in the nature or in one of the sees, in a public or our private (in summer) pool.

We live in a relaxing neighbourhood with beautiful houses and views. Shops, transport and leisure possibilities are close (5-10 minutes). From our house above the river you have a magnific view over the village, the river Neckar and the Odenwald-forest. Heidelberg-Ziegelhausen is one of the famous districts of Heidelberg with direct access to the famous philosophers path ("Philosophenweg") nearly behind our house, to the public swimming pool and the monastery with brewery and restaurant.

It takes only 10 minutes for 4km with public transport to be in the historical center of Heidelberg, a beautiful old town and young living city with its attractions like the castle, theatres, museums, cinemas, zoo, markets, bars and restaurants. Heidelberg is one of the Unecso cities of literature, there are literature festivals in summer and autumn. An great experience is the open air theatre at the castle during the summer with view and sunset above the city and the river. Also a boats trip on the river, in summer with possibility to see the castle firework, is an experience. The Heidelberg theatre has a good orchestra with concerts, the theatre in Mannheim (30min) is after Frankfurt (1h) the best in Germany, there are famous operas with subtitles.

Our house has all luxury, together with a swimming pool in summer (next year again), the large garden and the nature around our house. You can use our bicycles and car if you like. From Heidelberg its fun to discover Southgermany (Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Schwetzingen, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Konstanz), even Luxembourg, France and Swiss. You will enjoy your stay in our house! We will be respectful with yours.

The living room contains 70m2 on two floors. From there you get into the kitchen with view on the paddock, the bathroom with view and door into the garden, shower, tube, 2 washing places, the master bedroom with a double bed, morning sun and access into the garden and three smaller kids rooms, two with single beds and one with two single beds. From each room you can look and mostly go into the garden with its four terraces. Downstaires we have two female students living there during the week separated and lockable with extra kitchen, bath and entrance since last year which works very good and quiete. The big wooden terrace downstaires could be used for barbecue and sometimes shared with the really polite young female students - but we have a directly balcony terrace too.

Please notice our two cats which are living and sleeping in-and outside the house and need to be feeded and looking for some love:-) Our dog will be in a pension (or with us if you accept). Since autumn we have two sweet rabbits too, living outside and need to be feeded twice a day.

Since last year we often have language students living with us for some weeks or months. If you like, we could host your children (1-2) for a compensation and teach them German as I am a teacher for German and Philosophy and for German as a foreign language. We could rent one of our rooms too in our flat-sharing community downstaires if one of them is free. We are even looking for an exchange in a host family for our daughters for improving their English and French.

For more informations about our city Heidelberg you can look at www.heidelberg.de

Warm greetings,
Kristin with partner, Zoé and July