The French could not have realized what a favour they were doing for future generations of Germans when they blew up the castle at Heidelberg.
What some might consider a catastrophe, we can now consider a blessing because Heidelberg's romance comes largely from the castle ruins that rise above the town.
Imagine what could have happened if they left it there. Would a rich guy have bought it and renovated it into some aristocratic pleasure house?
Would someone might have stepped in and "updated" it? Like the medieval and Romanesque cathedral that had their beautiful frescoes and vaults covered with gaudy Baroque gild work.
What we have instead is a ruin done right. No ostentation. No schnick-schnack. Aside from a museum, it's something as close to the real thing as you could get without travelling back in time. Which, when I think of it, would not be a good idea for someone like me: a non-German, Bad French-speaking Anglo.
But, what a ruin it is. The castle sits majestically on a hill just above the old town of Heidelberg. An old town that is actually old because Heidelberg had so little strategic importance that was one of the few German cities spared from being bombed into bits and pieces. A calm river flows in the foreground of the pretty little scene, with an old bridge spanning it.
Still not swooning? Well, the limestone from the area has a pinkish red hue, so when a sunset hits it, like during a sunset, it appears bright red on the green forested hillside.
If you are unmoved by this, that's fine. The castle does not care about you and your stone heart. It had Victorian painters flocking to its battlements to make pretty landscapes. Poems have been lovingly composed on its mountains slopes. Even Mark Twain was moved enough to eschew his usual satirical tone and write about it sweepingly – he saved the his wit for another essay: The Damned German Language.
But if castle ruins are not your thing. Heidelberg has few more things for you:
Ominous-looking Baroque Churches
Or a Romanesque Church, if that's your thing
Cigar Store Africans:
An old timey Students' Prison
Fog
Happy People
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