By Ines Keane
Heidelberg is a place people picture before they see it. A broken red castle, a river, a stone bridge with a gate at one end. The picture is accurate. What the sources add is how much of it was damaged, repaired and argued over, and where the accounts disagree.
Where it sits
Wikipedia places Heidelberg in Baden-Württemberg, on the Neckar, about 78 km south of Frankfurt. Its English article gives the population as 155,756 on 31 December 2024. The German article gives 155,175 for 31 December 2023. Those are different years, not a dispute, and we show both. The old town, according to the German article, is the historic core between the river and the Königstuhl hill. The English article calls the Hauptstrasse a mile-long pedestrian street; the German article gives 1.6 kilometres.
The castle, and two ways it was lost
Wikipedia’s article on the castle says the town is first mentioned in 1196 and the castle in 1214, though a timeline entry on the same page gives 1225 for the first mention as a “castrum”. By 1303 two castles are named, an upper one on the Kleiner Gaisberg and a lower one on the Jettenbühl, which is the present site. Friedrich IV had the Friedrichsbau built between 1601 and 1607, and the article calls it the best preserved part.
Here are the sources that part company. The castle article says the upper castle was destroyed in 1537 by lightning. The town article says it was destroyed that year by a gunpowder explosion. We do not choose. Both agree on the later dates. The castle was badly damaged in 1693, in the war of the Palatine succession, and a lightning strike in 1764 ended attempts at rebuilding. It is now a ruin that has been only partly rebuilt.
Why it was not rebuilt
Wikipedia says quarrying of the ruin stopped in 1800, when Count Charles de Graimberg began to preserve it. His prints, the castle article says, drew visitors. J. M. W. Turner visited between 1817 and 1844 and painted it often, placing it higher on the hill than it really stands. Mark Twain described it in his 1880 travel book A Tramp Abroad. Objects from Graimberg’s cabinet of castle finds became core pieces of the Kurpfälzisches Museum. The castle’s own website says the ruins have stood for Romanticism since the early nineteenth century.
The garden, the barrel and the apothecaries
According to Wikipedia, Frederick V, Elector Palatine, commissioned the Hortus Palatinus in 1614 for his wife Elizabeth Stuart, and the French engineer Salomon de Caus began work that July. Work ran from 1614 to 1619, and contemporaries called it the eighth wonder of the world. The gardens are ruins now.
The castle also holds a great wine barrel. Wikipedia lists four tuns in Heidelberg’s history, built in 1591, 1664, 1728 and 1751. The present one, of 1751, held 221,726 litres at first and about 219,000 now, because the wood dried out. The castle’s website gives 220,000. The German Apothecary Museum is also inside the castle, according to Wikipedia and the castle website.
The bridge
Wikipedia says the Old Bridge was built in 1786 to 1788 with Baroque tower helmets added in 1788. The German article on the bridge says construction began in 1786 under the building inspector Mathias Mayer and finished in October or November 1788, for Elector Karl Theodor, who chose Mayer’s plan on 1 July 1785. It has nine arches. The German article says the gate at the south end has a medieval core and two towers about 28 metres tall. It lists eight earlier bridges on the site, most of wood, the first recorded in 1284.
The bridge was damaged on 29 March 1945; rebuilding began on 14 March 1946, and the article gives 26 July 1947 for the reopening. A bridge monkey, a metal figure by the gate, goes back to the early seventeenth century according to the German article, was lost in 1689, and was replaced in 1979.
The university and the student prison
Wikipedia’s article on the university says Pope Urban VI gave permission on 23 October 1385, that the founding decision came on 26 June 1386, and that the first lecture was on 19 October 1386. The Studentenkarzer, the student prison, is part of the same museum complex, according to the German article. It says university jurisdiction over students goes back to the fourteenth century, that prison sentences became usual in the sixteenth, and that the system lasted into the early twentieth. In the last decades, it adds, a sentence was often a matter of pride, and the colourful wall paintings come from those years.
Walks and a market
The English article places the Philosophenweg on the Heiligenberg, on the north bank, with views of the old town and castle. The German article calls it the town’s balcony and says vines were planted there again in 2000. The English article adds a Christmas market across the oldest part of town. It usually opens in late November; check the organiser’s site for dates.
Dates in order
- 1386: first lecture at the university, according to Wikipedia.
- 1614 to 1619: Hortus Palatinus, according to Wikipedia.
- 1693 and 1764: damage and lightning, according to Wikipedia.
- 1786 to 1788: the Old Bridge, according to the German Wikipedia article.
- 1800: quarrying stops, according to Wikipedia.
What we left out
We give no opening hours, tickets or transport, and we leave out the detail of the wars and all repair costs.
Quick answers
How old is Heidelberg University? According to Wikipedia, its first lecture was on 19 October 1386, and the founding decision came on 26 June 1386.
Why is Heidelberg Castle a ruin? Wikipedia says it was badly damaged in 1693 and a lightning strike in 1764 ended attempts to rebuild it. Graimberg began preserving it around 1800.
When was the Old Bridge built? The German Wikipedia article says construction began in 1786 and finished in autumn 1788, for Elector Karl Theodor.
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Roam first. Shop later.