Heidelberg is Jo's other most favorite German city. Situated close to his hometown, some of Jo's fondest university memories come from here. The University of Heidelberg was founded in 1386 and has the prestige of being one of Europe's oldest educational institutions. Because Heidelberg itself is not a very large city, the university students actually make up about one-fifth of the population.
We arrived in Heidelberg mid-morning, which gave us just a few hours to poke around before our scheduled train departure. After having brunch on the outskirts of town, we took the tram up to the Altstadt for some quick historic sights.
Jo made sure we saw this view of beautiful houses along the Neckar River from the tram.
Once in the Altstadt our first stop was the Heiliggeistekirche or Church of the Holy Spirit.
The interior:
The vault keystone:
The Heiliggeistkirche possesses some modern-looking and controversial stained glass windows.
This last window, called Physics, was designed by German artist Johannes Schreiter. It was his response to the atomic bomb and includes Einstein's famous E = mc2 equation, two New Testament verses, and the date that the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It was the only window in Schreiter's cycle that, after much contention, was installed in the church.
The square just behind the church is called Marktplatz. I love the fleece blankets the restaurants include with their outdoor patio furniture. Unfortunately, the atmosphere in this square was not always so nice. In the past Marktplatz was the site of executions and the burning of witches and heretics.
The Haus zum Ritter (the house of the knight) was built in 1592 and has survived all of the wars from back then to present day.
The quaint streets of Heidelberg's old city.
Me posing with the Heidelberg backdrop.
Up to this point, Heidelberg was probably the most touristy city we'd visited. There were stores aimed at tourists everywhere.
Apparently they also get a lot of visitors from Japan. The Japanese language definitely rivaled English on the signs and even the store names in the city. I decided to take a picture of of one of these massive groups of Japanese (this group happened to be entirely elderly women) with the pretense of taking a picture of handsome Mike.
The Altstadt had lots of little squares where they held markets. This particular one had a unique fountain in the middle.
Many also had a lovely view of the Heidelberg Castle.
A closer view:
The Heidelberg Castle was first built in the 13th century. Vast and beautiful, it was once a well-fortified Gothic castle, but despite various attempts of rebuilding, is now mostly in ruins due to destruction from the wars (going all the way back to the Thirty Years War, The War of Succession, etc)... and being struck by lightning. Sadly, we didn't have time go look around. We were going to take the special train up to take a quick peek, but that was closed for construction work.
Instead, we walked to the Alte Brüke, a impressively large bridge over the Neckar River that was built in the late 1700's and got another nice view of the castle.
Mike on the bridge posing in front of the medieval city gate with storm clouds looming overhead.
The famous monkey statute from the city side of the gate.
Views of the Neckar.
Just as we started heading back into the city for the next bus towards the train station, it began to pour. We were fortunate that the rain held off until the end of our Heidelberg experience. It was too bad that we were only around long enough to get a few impressions, but we certainly enjoyed what we saw.
Jo, Annette, and Benjamin said goodbye and we soon settled into our two and a half hour train ride up to Kassel where we were meeting Annelie for another intensive week.
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