Heidelberg Castle

Heidelberg Castle holds its broken red-sandstone grandeur over the Neckar exactly as the Romantics loved it - part Renaissance palace, part ruin, wholly scenic, the ensemble that made Goethe linger, Turner paint and Mark Twain grin. Centuries of rough luck and lightning strikes left it unrestored on purpose; the Ottheinrich wing's sculpted facade stands roofless against the sky, and the great terrace looks down on the old town's roofs and the arches of the Old Bridge. In the cellars waits the Great Tun of 1751 - a wine barrel of roughly 219,000 litres with a dance floor built on its top - and the courtyard buildings hold the German Pharmacy Museum's two thousand years of remedies. A funicular hoists visitors up from the Kornmarkt, and on summer illumination nights the ruin glows red under fireworks as if the lightning were being politely re-enacted.

History

Heidelberg is first mentioned in 1196, and the first record of a castle there dates from 1214, when Louis I, Duke of Bavaria, received it from Emperor Frederick II; by 1303 there were two castles, an upper one on the Kleiner Gaisberg, destroyed by lightning in 1537, and the lower one on the Jettenbühl, the present site, founded between 1294 and 1303. When Ruprecht became King of Germany in 1401 the castle was too small for his court, and he set about enlarging it; his son Ludwig III held the deposed antipope John XXIII in custody here after the Council of Constance in 1415. The castle had been expanded by 1650, was damaged by later wars and fires, and in 1764 lightning started a fire that destroyed rebuilt sections, so that it has been only partly restored since (Wikipedia, Heidelberg Castle).

What to look for

• The Ottheinrich facade - Renaissance sculpture standing roofless against the sky.
• The Great Tun - the 1751 barrel of some 219,000 litres, dance floor on top.
• The terrace view - old town roofs, the Neckar and the Old Bridge below.
• The Pharmacy Museum - two millennia of remedies in the castle wings.

When to go

April to October for gardens and terraces; the summer castle illumination nights with fireworks over the river are the local institution. Winter gives the courtyard a spare, uncrowded dignity.

Things to know

The ticket covers courtyard, barrel and museum, but the furnished interiors are guided-tour only and brisk. Coach crowds surge from mid-morning - come at opening or toward dusk. The walk up is steeper than it looks; the funicular is included in the ticket and worth it.

Nearby

The Old Bridge, the Philosophers' Way viewpoint, the Konigstuhl summit and Speyer's cathedral.

Key facts