Hamburg, Germany: General travel information
Heidelberg, area 109 km², population 145 000, federal state: Baden-Wuerttemberg
The remains of Homo heidelbergensis, the Heidelberg man, an extinct species that lived about 1 million years ago and the earliest known evidence of human life in europe where discovered in Heidelberg in 1907.
The area of Heidelberg was settled by celtic tribes in the 5th century BC, AD 40 a roman fortress was built by the 2nd Cyrenaican and the 24th roman cohort.
The first settlement that is documentary mentioned is the village Bergheim in 769, the monastery of St. Michael was built in 863.
The river Neckar flows through the town of Heidelberg, marking the end of the steep Odenwald valley. Heidelberg is famous for the castle ruin and the old town, it was the center of the romanticism period in germany where Clemens Bretano, Joseph von Goerres and Joseph von Eichendorff built a circle of poets. The Philosophers walk, a famous lookout walking way opposite the castle and the old town is a relic of the romanticism.
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Main sights:
- Heidelberg castle, situated 80m above the town of Heidelberg, partly restored castle ruin, destroyed by french troops in 1689 and 1693, first documentary mentioned 1147 und the reign of Conrad, Count Palatine of the rhine
- Heidelberg tun (in the cellars of the castle), the biggest wine barrel in the world that was ever filled (and drunk empty), once containing 221 726 liters, nowadays - after dehydration of the wood - having a volume of about 219 000 liters, built under the reign of Charles Theodore, elector of bavaria
- Old town, one of the few remaining old towns of europe due to the fact that it was never bombed in WW 2
- Carl Theodore bridge, first documentary mentioned in 1248
- Heiliggeistkirche, church of the holy spirit , first documentary mentioned in 1239, laying of the foundation stone in 1398 on grounds of a former late romanesque church, late gothic architecture, once housing the Bibliotheca Palatina, one of the most important library of the renaissance
- Peterskirche, oldest church in Heidelberg, built in the 12th century, first documentary mentioned in 1196
- Jesuitenkirche, built from 1712 - 1723 by Johann Adam Breuning
- Haus zum Ritter, built in 1592
- Numerous historical buildings in the old town
- Philosophenweg, promenade opposite the castle with famous viewing points across the Neckar river and the old town of Heidelberg
- Museum of ethnology
- Museum of the electoral palatinate
- University of Heidelberg, founded on 23. october 1385 by Pope Urban IV, oldest university in germany
- Karzer, students prison of the late 18th century with wall paintings and inscriptions of the imprisoned