Visiting Schloss Heidelberger

After spending a day cruising down the Rhine, through the Upper Middle Rhine Gorge as part of my Viking River Cruise in 2014, my next adventure involved a castle ruin that my friends and I were able to tour and the city of Heidelberg, Germany.  We started the morning with our ship docking in Mannheim and we were then escorted by our Viking Motor Coach ensemble to Heidelberg, where we spent the morning touring a romantic ruin a top Konigstuhl Hill.

Schloss Heidelberger, or Heidelberg Castle, overlooks the city of Heidelberg, Germany. It is an impressive castle ruin that was constantly built on or added to throughout the centuries and destroyed multiple times, either through natural forces, such as a lightening strike that burned the structure or warring factions throughout the years.  It was home to the Palatine Electors or Counts Palatine throughout its history.

It was also another castle where in order to get to it our buses had to climb steep, narrow and curvy roads.  And there were beautiful luxury homes along the way.  Thankfully this time no one had to back down the hill and there were no issues with tourists.

Our tour guide Evelyn, who was from Heidelberg, met us on our bus when we left Mannheim and was with us while we toured the castle and also later when we toured Altstadt, or Old Town.  We enjoyed all the cottages and amazing homes on our way up to the castle.

We started our tour on the Altan, or Observation Deck, which gave us stunning views of Altstadt, below.  Here you can see the Neckar River and the large church is Heiliggeistkirche or the Church of the Holy Spirit which dates to the early thirteenth century.

This church is the Jesuitenkirche, or Church of the Jesuits.  This church is much newer, dating to 1712.  In fact, many of the older structures in Heidelberg date to the 1700’s our guide told us.  For years the French destroyed the town in war after war after war,  and it was after the War of the Palatinate Succession that the town was rebuilt.

Both of the churches seem to tower over the other buildings in the Old Town.

And even on a rainy day, they are captivating.

In fact, the entire town is a sea of orange between to banks of green.

So after pausing to take in the view, it was time to start our tour.  In the little map above, found on Wikipedia, we were on the Burg-Graben on the bottom center when we took our pictures of Heidelberg.  And looking at the map above, we were headed left to Der dicker Turm.

I happened to see this stone engraved with 1547 on one of the walls as we headed to Dicker Turm, or the Thick Tower.

And here is what is left of this impressive tower, built by Ludwig V, who is on the left above and was Elector from 1508 to 1544.  On the right is Friedrich V, Elector from 1610 to 1623.  He turned the tower (which was then destroyed) into a Shakespearean Theater.

The tower is also called the Thick or Fat Tower, because its base is 7 meters thick.  The thinking was that would be a mighty defensive tower, but it too was blasted and destroyed during one of the many, many wars of the period.  And even what is left of the top is pretty thick.  I just love the flowers growing out of the cracks.

This is the statue of Friedrich V.  I love the detail on his outfit.  When you look at it up close there are actually scenes carved on his breeches and armor.

And there is a lion hiding behind his feet and cape.

Ludwig V does not seem to have the “stories” on his attire like Friedrich V, but his has beautiful decoration just the same.

And he also has a lion behind his cape and feet.

The castle is made of red sandstone from the Neckar Valley.  Between the two Electors is an inscription in Latin.

It reads:

Ludwig, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Elector and Duke of Bavaria, has this building listed in Christ 1533. Frederick V., count palatine of the Rhine, Elector and acting head of the Holy Roman Empire, Duke in Bavaria, the same canceled up to cornice, new built, provided with vaulted ceiling, the height of the dining room enlarged by 33 feet, in the middle of the load of the entire roof pillar, without removing the roof and damage that away and let set these monuments in the year of Our Lord 1619.

What a fascinating start to this tour.  We were excited to get on to the next section, the Englischer Bau, or English Building, built for the Winter Queen, Elizabeth Stuart.  But more about her and that section in another post.

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This is not a sponsored post.  
This is my experience from my trip with Viking River Cruises. 

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