A city of significance Heidelberg, a fanciful surreal beauty!
"The old stone bridge was erected 1786–1788. A medieval bridge gate, i.e. the Carl Theodor/ "Old Bridge" gate, is on the side of the old town, and was originally part of the town wall. Baroque tower helmets were added as part of the erection of the stone bridge in 1788."
The Old Town - "die Altstadt"
Among the most frequented tourist destinations in Germany, Heidelberg is popular thanks to its romantic and picturesque cityscape, including Heidelberg Castle and the baroque style Old Town. A former residence of the Electorate of the Palatinate, Heidelberg is the location of Heidelberg University, well known far beyond Germany's borders. The city's pedestrian zone is a shopping and night life magnet for the surrounding area and beyond.
View of the Old Town and the church of the Holy Spirit from the Heidelberg Castle
"I saw Heidelberg on a perfectly clear morning, with a pleasant air both cool and invigorating. The city, just so, with the totality of its ambiance is, one might say, something ideal." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
"Over the course of centuries, the Castle and its grounds reflected the rise and fall of Heidelberg as a Prince Elector’s residence. In the early 19th century, it made Heidelberg a mecca of German Romanticism. The Castle, the town and the surrounding landscape blended with university and student life to create the “Heidelberg legend”, while providing exciting new inspiration to composers, painters and poets." (source: Stadt Heidelberg).
"But let me talk of its castle. (This is absolutely essential, and I should actually have begun with it.) What times it has been through! Five hundred years long it has been victim to everything that has shaken Europe, and now it has collapsed under its weight. That is because this Heidelberg Castle, the residence of the counts Palatine, who were answerable only to kings, emperors, and popes, and was of too much significance to bend to their whims, but couldn't raise his head without coming into conflict with them, and that is because, in my opinion, that the Heidelberg Castle has always taken up some position of opposition towards the powerful."...
"A ruin must be rightly situated, to be effective. This one could not have been better placed. It stands upon a commanding elevation, it is buried in green woods, there is no level ground about it, but, on the contrary, there are wooded terraces upon terraces, and one looks down through shining leaves into profound chasms and abysses where twilight reigns and the sun cannot intrude. Nature knows how to garnish a ruin to get the best effect. One of these old towers is split down the middle, and one half has tumbled aside. It tumbled in such a way as to establish itself in a picturesque attitude. Then all it lacked was a fitting drapery, and Nature has furnished that; she has robed the rugged mass in flowers and verdure, and made it a charm to the eye. The standing half exposes its arched and cavernous rooms to you, like open, toothless mouths; there, too, the vines and flowers have done their work of grace. The rear portion of the tower has not been neglected, either, but is clothed with a clinging garment of polished ivy which hides the wounds and stains of time. Even the top is not left bare, but is crowned with a flourishing group of trees & shrubs. Misfortune has done for this old tower what it has done for the human character sometimes – improved it." - Mark Twain
Victor Hugo, who had come to love the ruins of the castle, also saw it as a divine signal:
"One could even say that the very heavens had intervened. On 23 June 1764, the day before Karl Theodor was to move into the castle and make it his seat (which, by the bye, would have been a great disaster, for if Karl Theodor had spent his thirty years there, these austere ruins which we today so admire would certainly have been decorated in the pompadour style); on this day, then, with the prince's furnishings already arrived and waiting in the Church of the Holy Spirit, fire from heaven hit the octagonal tower, set light to the roof, and destroyed this five hundred year old castle in very few hours." - Victor Hugo, "Heidelberg".
The Heidelberg professor Ludwig Giesz wrote, in his 1960 essay titled "Phenomenology of the Kitsches", about the "meaning of the ruins for tourism":
"Ruins are the pinnacle of what we have called "historical" Exoticism. As a jumping off point, a story from experience may serve: in 1945 shortly after the surrender of Germany, when asked by an American soldier who was eagerly "picture-taking" at the Heidelberg Castle how this place of pilgrimage for all Romantics came to be a ruin, I replied mischievously, "it was destroyed by American bombs." The reaction of the soldiers was very instructive. I will speculate briefly: the shock to their consciousness—stemming from an aesthetic, not an ethical problem—was extraordinary: the "ruin" no longer appeared beautiful to them; on the contrary, they regretted (thus: with realistic present consciousness) the recent destruction of a large building."
"The important culture and era critic Günther Anders pointed out that - contrary to widespread opinion - the Romantic Era did not first admire the view for the "beauty of the ruin." Rather the following inversion took place: the Renaissance (like the first generation) admired the ancient Torso, "not because, but although it was a Torso". One found beauty, but "unfortunately" (!) only as ruin. The second generation inverted the "ruin of the beautiful one" for the "beauty of the ruin." And from here to industrial "production of ruins" the way was clear: like garden gnomes one now sets ruins into the landscape, in order for the landscape to become beautiful."...
Along river Neckar when the afternoon sun finally appeared and slowly set down..
