The Great Vat
The largest wine barrel in the world, holding some 220,000 litres. There is a platform on top you can climb.
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The easiest way is the funicular from the old town, usually included in the ticket and only a few minutes. Or walk up in about twenty minutes on a steep path. If walking is difficult, take the funicular both ways.
No. Some parts are intact and can be entered, others are open to the sky. The mixture is what makes it distinctive. Do not expect a fully furnished palace like Neuschwanstein.
Early morning at opening, or the last two hours before closing. Avoid midday in summer. The gardens stay quiet even at busy times, because most visitors gather in the courtyard.
Go down into the old town and walk to the Old Bridge over the Neckar — free and close by. From the bridge you see the castle from below, which is the finest shot of the two together.
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Heidelberg Castle stands on a hill above the town, and it is the most famous ruin in Germany. It is not one building but a group of them from different centuries, some intact and some collapsed. That mix of finished stone and broken stone is what made it famous, and nineteenth-century artists painted it constantly. The castle was damaged twice by war in the seventeenth century, then struck by lightning in 1764, which burned part of it. After that it was simply left as it was and never rebuilt. Today you find split towers, walls open to the sky, and wide gardens around them. Inside there are three main things: the Great Vat, the largest wine barrel in the world; the German Pharmacy Museum; and the terrace looking over the town and the river. The ticket usually includes the funicular railway up from the town, which saves you a tiring climb.
The largest wine barrel in the world, holding some 220,000 litres. There is a platform on top you can climb.
A tower whose side burst off in one piece and still lies beside it. The castle's most photographed feature.
A full view of the old town, the Neckar and the Old Bridge. The best view in Heidelberg.
Old apothecary shops rebuilt with their jars and instruments. Included in the ticket, and often missed.
Schlosshof 1, 69117 Heidelberg