Heidelberg Castle, Germany

Heidelberg Castle (Heidelberger Schloss) presides over the old town from a terrace on the Königstuhl hillside, its rose-red sandstone walls counted among the most important Renaissance buildings north of the Alps. Part fortress and part princely residence, it was the seat of the Electors Palatine for some five centuries, growing from a medieval stronghold first documented in 1214 into a sprawling complex of Gothic and Renaissance wings. War and lightning eventually left it a majestic ruin: French troops sacked and blew up much of the castle during the wars of the late 17th century, and a lightning strike in 1764 ended the last attempts to make it habitable. Never fully rebuilt, its half-fallen towers and ivy-clad walls became a defining image of German Romanticism, admired by painters and writers from Turner to Goethe and Mark Twain, who called it a ruin that Nature had chosen to garnish for the best effect.

What to See

The castle is entered across a bridge and through the ornate Elisabeth Gate, said to have been raised overnight in 1615 as a birthday surprise from Elector Friedrich V to his English wife, Elizabeth Stuart. The great courtyard is framed by the palace’s most celebrated façades: the richly sculpted Ottheinrich Building, a landmark of German Renaissance architecture, and the well-preserved Friedrich Building, whose front is lined with statues of the Palatine rulers. Down in the cellars waits the Great Tun (Großes Fass), a colossal 18th-century wine barrel holding around 219,000 litres, with a dance floor built on top and once watched over by the castle’s legendary dwarf jester Perkeo. The same wing houses the German Pharmacy Museum, which traces the history of apothecaries through beautifully reconstructed shop interiors. Outside, the terraces and the surviving traces of the Hortus Palatinus garden — an ambitious early-Baroque design once hailed as the “eighth wonder of the world” — open onto sweeping views over the rooftops, the Old Bridge and the Neckar valley.

How to Get There and Practical Information

The castle sits about 80 metres above the Old Town and is reached in a few minutes on the Heidelberger Bergbahn, a historic funicular railway that climbs from the Kornmarkt station in the centre; the same line continues up to the Molkenkur and the summit of the Königstuhl. Walkers can instead take the steep, stepped Burgweg path from the old town in around ten to fifteen minutes. A combined ticket (about €9 for adults) covers the funicular, the castle courtyard, the Great Tun and the German Pharmacy Museum, while the interior state rooms can be seen only on a separate guided tour. The grounds and terraces are open daily year-round, and the ruins are at their most magical during the summer “Castle Illumination” evenings, when they are floodlit and fireworks rise over the Neckar.