A Visit to Schloss Heidelberg

Thanks to the wonderful new system at Schiller, there are no classes on Friday! So Kae Lani, Taylor, and I decided to take a tour of Heidelberg Castle and walk around on the Hauptstraße, or Main Street, in the Altstadt (old city) part of Heidelberg. For the second day in a row there was no snow and it was pretty bright out, both of which are merciful changes from the weather we've been having. Since I've been here, it has been overcast and snowing constantly. It never seems to accumulate to more than 2 inches though, and the Germans are very efficient at clearing the roads and sidewalks by morning. Thankfully, yesterday the sun was out for a good part of the day and the city seemed happier. But I digress.

Before heading to the castle, we met up with our friend Cody and got lunch at a falafel place just off the Hauptstraße. I had always thought it was some weird veggie slop you get in New York but it's actually really good and the little restaurant was so cute. After lunch we headed up Hauptstraße to Marktplatz and had a photo op of the castle up on the hill. Then it was time to trek up the steep steps beside the castle. It was a good thing we ate beforehand because we needed all that energy to get us up the 300 steps to the castle. Once at the top, we knew it was worth the effort. Schloss Heidelberg is a beautiful old ruin with a tumultuous history and the views from it's outer grounds are fantastic. You can see the entire city of Heidelberg, all the cathedral steeples and red-roofed houses and quaint bridges over the Neckar River. It's breathtaking up there, and the Königstuhl (King's Chair) hill it sits on is very steep, so it looks like you could just drop into the city over the wall. Even with the sky being a little foggy in the distance, you could still see for miles. Heidelberg is nestled in a little valley and from the Königstuhl you can see how the mountains surround the city. We got some great pictures looking over the wall and the view will get even better once spring comes and everything is clear and green.

The castle grounds were covered in snow and that made it even more picturesque. Since we were still walking on the outer wall surrounding the central building, we could clearly see all the damage that has been done to the schloss over the years. For a little history: The earliest parts of the schloss date back to around 1214, but it was added on to for hundreds of years. Huge chunks of stone are gone from the walls and towers where cannonballs and mines had smashed into them when the French bombarded it at the end of the 17th century. The castle had been attacked before, but the French attack during the Nine Years' War caused it's greatest destruction. Leave it to the French. Although it is surprising they once managed to destroy anything seeing as how they fail at life. Anyway, it's not as if the whole thing is just a bunch of boulders lying around, the inner part is very much intact and we went inside it for a self-guided tour. There's an apothecary museum inside that was interesting to see, but the main event is Die Großen Fässer. This is German for "The Great Barrels" and kind of an understatement for what they actually are. The first barrel we saw was enormous, probably 15 ft. high and 12 ft. long, and made of solid wood with a royal crest on top. It held over 3,000 gallons of beer in it's prime. Yes my friends, this was a serious keg. I was amazed and convinced of my countryman's great love of ale. I thought it had to be the biggest keg in the world. Oohhhhhh was I wrong.

There is no word in German or English to express the size of the monster keg in the following room, so I will make one up. Ginormhumungargantuanimmense (looks German though). And even that doesn't do it justice! I thought it was a ship they had put in there when I first glanced at it. As I walked closer, I saw this was the great-great-great-great granddaddy of kegs. I couldn't believe my eyes, I thought it was some trick of light or spatial positioning. But no, there it was, the biggest keg on earth. Let me give you some numbers: built between 1750-1751, it is 30 ft. long, 21 ft. high, and capable of holding 228,000 liters (59,280 gallons). Don't EVER question the Germans commitment to beer ;)  Alas, they may have gotten a little over zealous because the great barrel was taken out of commission in only 1767 due to extensive leakage and expensive repairs. But the Elector of Heidelberg decided it should be kept as an object of interest for visitors to the castle. He was truly a visionary. After taking many pictures involving many goofy poses on top of the barrel, we decided to skip touring the rest of the castle and the grounds because it was getting dark and cold. Of course, we ended up finding the most inconvenient way to get down the hill. This time we went in front of the castle down a seemingly endless snow covered, icy hill. Thank God there was a railing on the wall, and I clung to that thing like if I let go I'd fall of a cliff. Meanwhile, Cody was having fun laughing at us girls as he slowly slid down the path, standing backwards with his hands in his pockets. It wasn't even fair how easy he made it look. That hill would make for epic sledding with the right equipment; however, that night I didn't feel like using my head as a toboggan. I wondered how the efficient German hadn't managed to clear that dangerous hill. When we reached the bottom, we found a sign saying that when the hill gets icy, they're not going to clean the snow off so use at your own risk. That we did. And so ended our great day at Schloss Heidelberg. I can't wait to go back!