Heidelberg Castle (Schloss Heidelberg)

Heidelberg Castle (Schloss Heidelberg) rises about 80 metres above the Old Town on the Jettenbühl slope of the Königstuhl, in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany. For roughly four centuries it was the residence of the Electors Palatine, and its fabric records that history layer by layer. The oldest parts date to the 13th century, but most of what visitors see grew between the 15th and early 17th centuries, when successive electors added palace wings in Gothic and then Renaissance styles. The most celebrated is the Ottheinrichsbau, built 1556-1559 under Elector Ottheinrich, whose sculpted sandstone facade of mythological and biblical figures is regarded as a landmark of German Renaissance architecture. The Friedrichsbau of the early 1600s carries a gallery of ancestral portrait statues facing the courtyard. The castle was devastated in the Palatine War of Succession, when French troops blew up towers and walls in 1689 and burned the building in 1693. Rebuilding began but was abandoned after lightning struck in 1764, leaving the ruin that later fascinated Romantic poets and painters. Among the surviving structures is the Gesprengter Turm, the Powder Tower, whose massive wall lies split where it was blown apart. Beneath the Fassbau, the Great Vat, built in the 1750s, is one of the largest wine barrels in the world. Within the Ottheinrichsbau, the German Apothecary Museum presents the history of pharmacy, and the castle gardens (Hortus Palatinus) remain partly visible as terraces. The curatorial approach is largely that of a preserved ruin: visitors move through the courtyard and ramparts at their own pace, while interiors are reached through guided tours. Restoration since the 19th century has stabilised walls and reconstructed selected parts, including the Friedrichsbau, rather than rebuilding the whole. The castle is reached by funicular from Kornmarkt or on foot via the Burgweg, and it remains the most visited monument in Heidelberg.