Heidelberg Old Town and Castle

Heidelberg Castle crowns a wooded hillside 80 metres above the Neckar River in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, looking down over one of the country's most romantic old towns. The castle complex is a magnificent ruin of red Neckar sandstone, parts dating from the 13th century and expanded through the 16th and early 17th centuries into a Renaissance palace before destruction by French forces in the 1690s left many wings as dramatic roofless shells. Within the still-intact sections visitors find the German Pharmacy Museum — the only one of its kind in the world — and the Grosses Fass, a wine barrel with a capacity of 221,726 litres built in 1751. The castle terrace affords panoramic views of Heidelberg's Baroque Altstadt, the winding Neckar, the Karl-Theodor-Brücke (Old Bridge) with its twin towers, and the wooded hills of the Odenwald beyond. The most convenient ascent is by funicular railway (Bergbahn) from Kornmarkt square, though the footpath through the castle gardens is pleasant in good weather. Below, Heidelberg's Hauptstrasse — a 1.6-kilometre pedestrian boulevard — runs the length of the Altstadt past Baroque churches, the Old University, and the Studentenkarzer, a student prison where undergraduates arrested for minor misdemeanours were confined until 1914. The university, founded in 1386, is Germany's oldest and gives the town a persistent student energy. The combination of imposing ruin, river scenery, and lively old town made Heidelberg a defining destination of German Romanticism and attracted writers including Goethe and Hölderlin.