Oct 13 - Exploring Heidelberg

It’s Sunday - a day for another long, leisurely breakfast. Lots of coffee (at least for me), another big chocolate croissant, and more wonderful conversation with Angela and Peter.

We headed out to enjoy Heidelberg - it’s a beautiful warm, sunny day. Heidelberg sits on the banks of the Neckar River which is a tributary of the Rhine River. The Neckar flows into the Rhine at Mannheim. The Old Bridge (Alte Brücke), a sandstone arched bridge that crosses the Neckar, is the ninth bridge on the site, and dates from 1788. The bridge has two prominent monuments - one to Prince Elector Carl Theodor who had the bridge built, and the other dedicated to the Roman goddess of Wisdom, Minerva. The Prince Elector was a passionate supporter of the arts and sciences.

Some years ago, the practice of putting locks on bridges developed. The idea is simple: a couple crosses the bridge and puts a padlock on a section of the chainlink fence. The lock represents their love, and it will stay there for all of eternity. They then dramatically hurl the keys to the lock into the body of water under the bridge. The weight of thousands of locks began to adversely affect some bridges, particularly the Pont des Arts in Paris which partially collapsed. 45 tons of locks were removed from the bridge. Love locks are now a global phenomenon.

Heidelberg installed a mighty sandstone pillar, the Liebessein (love stone) near the bridge for lock lock fans. The stone is supposed to have been part of Heidelberg Castle. Fact or fiction??

The Heidelberg Bridge Monkey dates back to the 15th century. It was a stone statue sitting in the tower of the Old Bridge, which was located opposite Heidelberg’s Old Town. The monkey mocked the bishops of Mainz with a rather rude gesture. The purpose of the tower was to instill fear and respect in anyone arriving in the town, while the monkey represented mockery. The statue was destroyed with the tower during the Nine Years' War.

The current bronze monkey doesn’t make the rude gesture, but rather shows the sign of the horns, which is supposed to ward off the evil eye. It is said that if a visitor touches the sign of horns, they will return to Heidelberg. If a visitor touches the mirror, they will become wealthy, and if they touch the mice next to the monkey, they will have many children. It’s wealthy for us!

High on the hillside over the river sits Heidelberg Castle. The castle ruins are among the most important Renaissance structures north of the Alps. The earliest castle structure was built before 1214 and later expanded into two castles circa 1294; however, in 1537, a lightning bolt destroyed the upper castle. The present structures had been expanded by 1650, before damage by later wars and fires. In 1764, another lightning bolt caused a fire which destroyed some rebuilt sections. We toured the castle on our last visit, so we used our sunny time for exploring the streets of Heidelberg.

We saw the outside of the Church of the Holy Ghost and the Jesuit Church. By chance, mass was just concluding at the Jesuit Church, so we were able to enjoy the wonderful organ music of the final hymn and then to see the church interior. It’s done in the Baroque style, so it’s very light and airy with beautiful gold accents everywhere. The altar was decorated with thanksgiving displays that celebrate another bountiful harvest.

The streets are full of little cafés and bakeries with outdoor tables and chairs claiming every possible bit of space. Europeans love to eat and drink outdoors. We stopped for tea/coffee/juice and a sweet at a delightful little French bakery and sat in the warm sun. Had the best chocolate croissant ever! Will check on the quality of more French croissants starting tomorrow in Paris.

We headed back home so Angela could get some work done and we could get organized for our train trip to Paris tomorrow. We are feeling quite proud of ourselves for tackling the train system in Europe. We might tackle the Paris metro system this coming week - the weather forecast is for, yes, you guessed it, rain. Mind you, the % probability has been dropping, so that’s a good omen.Read more