There’s an old song—at least now it’s old—about a youthful romance in Heidelberg: Ich hab’ mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren—I lost my heart in Heidelberg.
From almost anywhere in the city, you can catch a glimpse of the ruined castle, destroyed in the 1680s and putting an end to Heidelberg as a major capital.
When I lived there in the late 1950s for two teen-age years, we all heard and sang the song, and somehow assumed it was an old and traditional anthem for the city, and the city did nothing to dispel that idea, although it turns out that it was written for a not-very-successful German musical in 1927.
The castle is actually a series of buildings around a major courtyard and gardens; several times a year a mock fire and fireworks recreate their destruction by Louis XIV. Some parts were rebuilt afterwards.
Heidelberg can be that way. Lots of romantic stories, picturesque streets, the University, the Old Bridge, and more. And when you step back for years and return, it still has a pull—but you can clearly recognize, year by year, how much it has become its legend more than just a place to live and work.
As a teen, I spent a lot of time around the castle; I knew enough about it then to show American visitors around… sometimes pretending to be a German teen-ager with not-too-badly-accented English. Sorry.
And it has become, far more than it was then, a center for tourism and souvenir-selling and luxury retail. It’s possible that some of my perception is a bit unfair; there’s a difference between living in a city and returning to it as a visitor, twice to show it to family members, and most recently for half a day as part of a Viking river cruise.
The surviving and restored parts host an apothecary museum, a cafe and even a summer theatre festival. My American high school’s prom and graduation were held in the Throne Room (Königsaal).
When I lived there, Heidelberg was a major headquarters for the U.S. Army and for NATO, and we lived in apartments sandwiched between a German neighborhood and the headquarters compound. The military was all around us, and it was a struggle to avoid the ‘Golden Ghetto’ of PX and commissary.
Below the castle, an unusual mansion, and all the way down, the city’s major Catholic church, the Jesuitenkirche. Nearby is the Heiliggeistkirche, or Holy Spirit Church, now Protestant but for many years shared between the two, with a wall down the center!
Signs for the famed student drinking places and hangouts, including Seppl’s and the Red Ox. We high-schoolers used to slip into some of them now and then, but the university students weren’t happy for our juvenile company.
The military’s all gone now, but so are the familiar shops and cafes I knew. And, downtown, the Hauptstrasse, or main street, that had been lined with shops of all kinds, many of them locally-owned, has become Europe’s longest pedestrianized street (good) and is lined end-to-end mainly with high-end boutiques selling the usual assortment of luxury, mixed with chain stores of other kinds.
And yet, even for the few hours, I found myself, if not humming, at least thinking that indeed, “ich hat mein herz in Heidelberg verloren.” And I spent the time, when we weren’t taking a long coffee break in Cafe Gundel, looking for the images that keep my light on for Heidelberg.
The statue at top was installed in 1978, honoring 16th-century humanist and cosmographer Sebastian Münster, who served as a monk nearby. Above left, the Madonna of the Grain Market was installed in 1718 by a Prince Elector who thought it would convince local Protestants to return to Catholicism. It didn’t. The 1706 Hercules in front of the City Hall is said to honor the town’s Herculean labors in rebuilding after the wars of the 1680s.
The Hotel zum Ritter Sankt Georg’s facade commemorates once again the good knight’s victory over the evil dragon (don’t you wonder what else he did in his lifetime?). It’s believed to be the oldest building standing in Heidelberg. The sheep? The hotel was originally the mansion of a wool merchant.
