Heidelberg, Beautiful City on the Neckar River

After our stop in Worms we took John’s brother Dave and his visiting family to Heidelberg, the beautiful city on the Neckar River. They call this place Germany’s Paris. It’s a busy and beautiful university town with a castle up on the mountain side.

This shop made me pause to look–it’s an AMERICAN shop with American stuff in the window!

Another place, another pastry. This was a delicious cinnamon roll right out of the oven! YUM.

The Church of the Holy Spirit is the largest church in Heidelberg, located in the marketplace in the old town center. It was constructed between 1398 and 1515 in the Romanesque and Gothic styles. It receives 1–3 million guests annually, making it among the most visited churches in Germany

We took the tram ride up the mountain to the castle.

The views from up on top were beautiful!

We spent a couple of hours up on top, wandering through the castle buildings, trying to imagine life here in it’s glory days.

Not much of the inner castle was open to the public, but there was an Apothecary Museum we walked through that was really interesting.

Everything was beautifully crafated.

Down in the wine cellars:

This piece of the tower fell off a long time ago. This has been a place for contemplation for many poets and writers through the centuries.

WHERE THE “KRAUT” WAS STORED
The economic building attaches to the massive powder tower, also called the “exploded tower.” Ludwig V reinforced Heidelberg Castle’s first castle keep with strong vaults. Embrasures and flues indicate its former function as a gun turret. “Kraut,” or powder, specifically gunpowder, was stored in the basement. French mines destroyed the roughly 6.5 meter-thick wall during the Nine Years’ War between 1688 and 1697. Since then, a third of the tower sits at the bottom of the stag pit.

Then we rode back down to the city and continued our wandering there.

This is the Heidelberg University library.

Kathe Wohlfahrt, my favorite shop.

As the afternoon turned towards evening, we walked to the bridge to watch the sun set and the lights on the castle turn on. It was beautiful and a really nice way to end our day (except we were getting very hungry!)