Heidelberg Castle: A Photojourneymonkeysandmountains.com /heidelberg-castle-germany

Heidelberg Castle is one of Germany’s most f amous castles, along with the Munich Residenzand Hohenzollern Castle.

It’s nestled on top of a hill overlooking the city Heidelberg. Not surprisingly in the summer it is packed with tourists. Inspite of all the tourists, I still find it simply majestic:

It’ not just the exterior walls of Heidelberg Castle that are beautiful, the interior walls also demanded my attention:

Heidelberg Castle is not all beauty though, it is over 700 years old af ter all.

In many ways Heidelberg it reminds me of an elegant older woman’s face. It looks beautiful from a distance, but whenyou get too close you start seeing all the wrinkles, reflecting the age of its owner. But instead of judging the wrinkles asflaws, it just makes the woman more beautiful and gives her even more depth. And Heidelberg Castle definitely has it’s“wrinkles” after being damaged by fire not once, but three times. Twice by the French in war and the third time when itwas struck by lightening making it uninhabitable.

It houses the World’s Largest

You can s ti l l s ee the dam aged caus ed by one o f the three fi res to He ide lberg Cas tle .

It houses the World’s LargestApothecary Museum (DeutschesApotheken Museum). Admissionis included with your ticket. Atthe Apothecary Museum visitorscan see over 20,000 pharmacyrelated objects. The collectiondates back over 2000 years anda quick look at the medicalequipment makes you thankfulthat you didn’t live in the middleages. As regular readers know, Ilove my quirky museums with theWorld’s Largest Pig Museum inStuttgart still being one of myfavorites.

Wine lovers may be interested inthe Heidelberg Tun. It’s theworld’s largest wine barrelmeasuring 7m high x 8.5 m wide. It could hold 220,000 liters ofwine. Why was such a largewine barrel needed atHeidelberg Castle? To hold thetaxes from the wine growers whooften paid in wine. Legend has itthat the wine barrel watcher usedto imbibe so much that when hedrank water by mistake he died.

There’s also the Castle Lighting,an event that takes placeseveral times throughout thesummer and reenacts one of the

Heide lberg Cas tle proud ly wears i t s cars , re flecting i ts l i fe h is tory. I th ink i t’s looking pre tty good forbe ing over 700 years o ld .

Som e of the i tem s on d is p lay a t the Apothecary Mus eum .

summer and reenacts one of thecastle burnings. It is thenfollowed by fireworks.

And the view f romHeidelberg Castle is nottoo bad either:

An hour south of Heidelberg youcan continue your castle journeywith Schloss Ludwigsburg, whichis my favorite castle tour, beforeheading further south toHohenzollern Castle and thesmall, yet worth visitingLichtenstein Castle.

Have you visitedHeidelberg Castle? Whatwere your impressions?

About Laurel

Laurel Robbins is a free-spiritedadventurer, award-winning travelblogger at Monkeys andMountains Adventure TravelBlog. Many hats, one travelobsessed Canadian in Germany.

The view of He ide lberg from the Cas tle .