The Heidelberg Castle... A Walk Through It's History

I took this from a site..so it's in the voice of a tour guide...thought some of you might wanna read about the history of the castle...Here goes:

"We begin our exploration of the castle at the main entrance, with its little guard house and walk into the former gunpark, used for weapons practice in former times. Prince Elector Frederic V changed the gunpark of the castle into a pleasure garden for his wife Princess Elizabeth Stuart. We walk past an engraved stone reminding of the time the poet and mayor German writer Goethe spent in Heidelberg, meeting here with his lady-friend Marianne von Willemer. Nearby we also find one of our many exotic trees which decorate this garden nowadays, a Ginko Tree (Ginko biloba) which Goethe also imortalized in a poem.

A few steps onwards we reach the first sightseeing terrace with a lovely view on the city and into the rhine valley. Here I will give you some details on the city and its past and present history and the buildings we are able to see from this viewing platform. Turning around we aproach the Fat or Thick Tower with statues of our two most important Princes of the castle, Prince elector Ludwig V and Frederic V. Ludwig V built most of the fortifications of the castle making it into a fortress, Frederic V transformed it into a Palace for representation. especially the Gardens were his most famous work, the "Hortus Palatinus" considered to be one of the most beautiful gardens of his time.

Walking along the Moat, in which deer and bears were kept, we reach the Elizabeth Gate, the birthday gift of Frederic V for his wife Elizabeth Stuart. (Ironically the gate faces outwards, so though it was intended that she draw open the curtains and see the gate, she had to walk outside to see the carving on it!!)

Walking past the main entrance we go a bit into the large garden area behind the Castle, a beautiful park for strolling around and a favorite place of the Heidelberg population to spend weekend afternoons with the children when the weather is good.

The Courtyard is impressive, 600 years of history surround us. Melac , the general in charge of the french troops, just needed a few days to burn it all down in 1693. The first building right next to us, the Ruprecht building, is the entrance if you choose to take an inside tour of the buildings. During the inside tour you will see the interior decoration of the Frederic building , the Knightshall with the miniature replicas of the castle before and after the destruction, many objects that were found during escavations and the Chapel of the castle among other sights. If you have time we can even climb one of the towers.

The Frederics building is a german reaissance building with lots of statues of the princes electors on the facade, among them the builder Frederic IV.

Our next building is the Ottheinrich building, called the most beautiful italian renaissance building north of the Alps. Next to it we walk up a spiral saircase which leads us into the Graimberg room. Count Charles de Graimberg is the Frenchman responsible for the fact that the castle is still around. He did the first arqueological excavations here and iniciated the local history museum. Leaving this room we walk up 2 floors into the Frederic building to admire the interior of this building rebuilt 1900 in the Neo Renaissance style under the initiative of the Margrave of Baden Baden. Most of the furniture and objects we find in this floor are from his private collection. Lovely stucco ceilings and marble imitation floors and wooden Doors and Doorframes await us in the corridor. Going down into the first floor where we find furniture of the period the building was built, the 17 century, mainly from Italy, and pictures of the princes Electors of that period and their family. Climbing down further we reach the chapel which can be rented for marriage ceremonies. In the chapel as well as the preceding floors we find the original statues from the fasade. Leaving the chapel we go into the Cellar to admire the huge wine vat with some 220.000 Litres capacity (55.000 gallons) just as impressive is the small one with only 45.000 Liters.

Tax wine was stored in these barrels, taken care of by the cellarmaster and court jester Perkeo, tiny in size but always very thirsty, drinking daily some 18 bottles of wine as the legend tells us. (He apparently died when he drank water!! LOL!!)"

That's all I got from there...I shall post any links to better sites on the history if I find those..btw what's in brackets is my own addition... :)