A Real European Castle in Heidelberg

In order to make it look good, and that I wasn't really just in Frankfurt to see Eunji, I needed something else to do. It turned out that there was a little city near enough to Frankfurt that had a famous castle. This was Heidelberg. They also are apparently famous for chocolate. With a journey of about an hour or an hour and a half, depending on which kind of train is used, Heidelberg makes a great day trip out of Frankfurt.

It didn't hurt that, for a long time, I have wanted to visit an honest to goodness European castle. You know the kind. It sits up on a hilltop, imposing as it looms over some idyllic little town, with parapets and towers, a moat and drawbridge maybe, and that wall around it that you can't mistake for anything other than a castle wall. Here was my chance.

I booked a train ticket to Heidelberg and got on. The discount ticket that the guy in Frankfurt's main train station had got me set up with on my first day in town was turning out to be really useful. But because I had it, I didn't check out the buses or any other form of transportation. Maybe they were cheaper, and I just never went to find out. Maybe Germany could have been a bit cheaper than I was finding it. But I guess I will never know, at least not on this trip.

I had taken just a normal, milk-run sort of train to get to Heidelberg. And it stopped everywhere. It ended up taking almost two hours to get to Heidelberg. On the way back I had booked an ICE train (Inter-city express), and that was going to be much quicker, albeit somewhat more expensive.

When I arrived in Heidelberg, I headed out the main door and found the tourist information kiosk. Have I mentioned already how nice it is to find tourist information kiosks that are truly tourist information kiosks and offices, instead of tour operators masquerading as tourist information offices and then really trying to sell you something? Well, if I haven't mentioned it, it is really nice to find tourist information offices that are truly tourist information offices. And this was really friendly. When I was in Berlin, the people in the tourist information office weren't very nice, nor particularly helpful. I had to drag all the information out of them about things like discount passes and such. It was kind of annoying there.

But the girl I spoke with in Heidelberg was really nice and helpful. She also greeted me with a big smile that just shouted that she liked her job. I told her that I had heard that Heidelberg was a nice place to visit and she said that it certainly was. Then when I told her I didn't know much about what I should go and see there, she handed me a map and showed me exactly how to get to the old town, a nice bridge, and of course the castle. And I didn't have to drag anything out of her. (I went back later and told her that she had been so nice and that that was how tourist information offices should work. She was pleased.)

She was a bit surprised when I said that I wanted to walk to the old town, which she told me was about 45 minutes away on foot. But it was a nice day and she didn't try to dissuade me at all. She was just surprised.

Off I went and it did take about 45 minutes to get to the old part of Heidelberg. It was easy enough though. Not only were the tourist information girl's directions very good, she had also told me that most of the trams went to that area, so I just made sure I followed them. Ding, ding, ding!

The old town, although very restored and shiny and new-ish looking, still didn't convey much of the tackiness that other such places I have visited virtually dripped. (I remember a place in China called Lijiang. It was inscribed on the World Heritage List, but was almost destroyed by an earthquake. It was put back up, but it looked as though they had taken it out of a box and put where it belonged. And it was all tourist crap in most of that town. It was not a nice place.) This was a working area, with restaurants and shops and boutiques. But it wasn't tacky and it wasn't just tourist stuff. This was in spite of it being restored and put together in order to draw tourists to the city.

There were narrow, cobbled streets. There were those German-town looking buildings. Perhaps it's more Bavarian looking. I'm not sure, but it's something that one thinks of when one thinks of Germany and the Alps and towns there.

There were also lots of churches. They were hidden down narrow streets that opened into larger squares every now and then.

And at the end of the old town, I started having glimpses of the castle that hovered over it all.

I proceeded a bit farther and found myself looking up through a square that gave a good view of the entire castle. The sign placard in the square said this was unusual. Towns with castles didn't generally have good views of the castle from any of the squares in town. But this one did and it was a very nice view.

From the square it was just a matter of finding the funicular to go up to the castle. That wasn't too hard and I was quickly on my way up to the castle. There was a road that went right up to the castle and I could have walked, but the nice woman in the tourist information office told me that if I walked or took the funicular, it was going to cost the same. So I decided to ride up and walk down. Less work. And funiculars are cool, the way they go right up the side of a mountain. This one had a sign letting riders know the present grade was 27 % or something like that.

At the top, I headed into the castle and walked around. It's perched on the side of the mountain. (Ha! Ha! Hill would be a better description.) It overlooks the old town below. And it's quite nice. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go in. I had purchased the ticket to go into the see the courtyard only. There was another ticket available for a guided tour and this would have taken me into the castle interior. But I didn't know this until I was inside and it was too late. But then I would have probably been somewhat underwhelmed. How different can the interior of a castle be? There will be rooms for eating and sleeping and bathing and having parties, and getting ready to defend the territory. So it was okay. I had seen the inside of these sorts of places before. The details and such will change, but not the overall impression. And the courtyard area was quite interesting enough, thank you very much. Although part of the castle was undergoing restoration, the overall impression was still very imposing.

And the view over the old town was also very nice.

One thing that was included in the ticket to the castle was the pharmaceutical museum. Wow! You might be thinking to yourself right now. And, I had the exact same thought going my mind. Well, more like, “Yawn!” But it was part of the deal, so I went in. And it was actually rather fascinating. There was a presentation of the development of pharmacies and pharmacists. How, right from the beginning, there were the people who decided what an illness needed to be cured, and the people who gathered and prepared the cure. It started with the first conceptions of what caused illness (the four humours (blood, phelgm, yellow bile, and black bile), which were connected to the four elements (earth, water, air, and fire), and to the four cardinal directions. These all interacted to maintain health or, when there was some kind of imbalance, create ill health. There were magical interpretations of illness through the centuries, and divine ones as well. A lot of knowledge was kept in the Arab world while Europe was wallowing in the repressive Middle Ages. In fact, in something that I should have figured out before, the word Alchemy comes from the fusion of the Arab “Al-” and the Greek “chemy” which is the root for chemistry. (Many words in English are derived from the time when much western knowledge was being stored in the Arab world while the Church was stamping out anything scientific as contradictory to the religious world-view. In a particularly ironic one, think “alcohol.”)

From this simplistic view of illness and cure, the world passed to a more useful view of microscopic causes of illness, and chemical answers to those illnesses. But through it all, the pharmacists were plying their trade. Information panels explained the whole progression through time. And they were well done.

There were also lots of props showing what pharmacists have used over the centuries...

...as well as where they worked...

...and the tools they used to do the work. There were many examples of all of these in this little museum. I was glad I hadn't passed it up. It was definitely not a yawner.

After spending a good amount of time in the castle, I headed back down the hill and found the bridge that was famous in the town. It was quite a nice bridge as well, but it was nothing special. I did find a good juxtaposition of the bridge and the castle in the background from the other side of the river.

Then it was pretty much a wrap. I had seen the sites in Heidelberg. It was a nice little town, and I may visit it again someday. That is if I can get over how expensive Europe is. I stopped on my way back to the train station for a bite to eat. 15 dollars later, I was on my way. At least it was a very big lunch and I wasn't going to be needing much in the way of dinner.

I got back to the station and got on a train just as the rain was starting anew and headed back to Frankfurt. I now had a good extra reason to have visited Frankfurt. Success!