A Hop through Heidelberg

Well, here it is - my longest vacation in years! And much needed - with big changes in all aspects of my life, an adventure with great friends is the medicine for the soul that I need. And with Kristyn giving us another excuse to groupie-style follow her to a marathon route, here we are! So our crew is - Kristyn of course, along with Lydia, who is about to run her 20th marathon here in Germany, and my fellow groupie Carolyn, who will happily remind the group daily what a horrible idea running marathons is… for us. 

We began our adventure by flying from LA to Frankfurt. The flight was a great reminder of how not petite I am, but Kristyn took the middle seat like the trooper that she is. After 12 hours, we landed in Germany, and got ready for our long trip to our hotel in Heidelberg. We first took a high speed train to Mannheim, where we transferred with our luggage to a smaller train to Heidelberg. It was pretty uneventful besides the 5 story escalator that was broken. It’s interesting the train culture in Europe - much less personal space is definitely the norm and if you don’t push your way onto the train you will for sure be left behind. With one last uber up the mountain we arrived at Könistuhl, this super cute hilltop hotel perched above the Old City. What an amazing view! We managed to have dinner without falling asleep in our food, and it was quite good - my first schnitzel and some lovely German rosé. 

We managed to stay awake until almost dark and got up for a full day in the Old Town today. We started by taking the 130 year old funicular to the amazing Heidelberg Castle. 

Built in the 13th Century, this castle is mostly in ruins but has a really cool story. It was originally built as a fortress with 20 foot thick walls, a moat, and all the ingredients you would expect in a medieval castle. Frederick IV, who was the Prince of the Palatinate died when he was 36, leaving his castle and kingdom to Frederick V. Frederick V married Elizabeth Stuart, who was the daughter of James I of England, in 1613. So this was a big deal because Protestantism was starting in England and it helped form allies in that part of Europe. Frederick V was only 16 when he married Elizabeth, but they were in love and Frederick built an addition on the Heidelberg Castle for his wife. On the top of one of the round towers be built a large English ballroom for her, and then he also had a huge terraced garden built for her. 

The tower on the left here is the ballroom built for Elizabeth

The ruins of the gunpowder storage tower over the moat

A hundreds of years old elderberry vine growing in the courtyard

Frederick’s problems started when the Bohemian crown was offered to him from Prague in 1619. This was a Protestant crown and though Elizabeth encouraged Frederick to accept, the Holy Roman Empire reacted quite poorly to this acceptance - they immediately attacked the castle and this was the start of the Thirty Years’ War - a terrible war during this era. Frederick and Elizabeth along with their 350 coaches went into exile, lost everything, and ended up in The Hague in The Netherlands. They ended up having 13 children but all of them were pretty much screwed because they had no land, no money, and no status. It wasn’t until Sophia, their 12th child, who was actually born at The Hague, until their family had real status again. This happened because her older brother Charles I was finally given back his status as the Protestants started to be accepted more as royalty. So Sophia had enough status to marry - she was courted by Charles II of England and rebuffed his advances, marrying instead Earnest Augustus in Heidelberg. So it was the last couple of Frederick and Elizabeth’ children who made it back to Heidelberg. She was months away from becoming the Queen of England when she died in 1714 at age 83 (!!). 

A huge wine barrel

I learned all this from a lovely tour guide named Charlotte who brought us through the castle grounds and interiors. She was super biased in her storytelling, and talked about the royal family as though she knew them, it was super sweet. Her favorite lady was Elizabeth Charlotte, who was the daughter of Charles I and niece of Sophia. “Lisolette” was a real firecracker according to our guide, and was a tomboy and super smart. She married Philippe I after his wife died and it turned out that Philippe was bisexual and had no interest in her. But she continued to do her thing, going hunting with Louis XIV and living her own life, navigating the divide between Catholicism and Protestantism. About 5000 of her letters were saved and apparently you can buy them, called “The Letters of Madame”. 

Anyway, lot of really cool stuff we learned at Heidelberg Castle, and with amazing views of the Neckar River. From there we took the more modern funicular down to the old city (Aldstadt), and walked around the commercial streets. We had lunch at a cool spot called Löwenbräu, where I started training for Octoberfest. I had a Radler (half lager half lemonade) and another schnitzel, this one with a fried egg on top, also delicious! 

From there we checked out Heidelberg Library, which is part of the University, built in the 1300s and is one of the oldest libraries in Germany. It had a beautiful skylight on the second floor and some cool exhibits showing the different natural materials they used to make pigment for some of the manuscripts of history. 

We then walked over to Philosophers’ Walk which was across the river. It was more like a hike up steep stone steps, but gave us amazing views of the castle and Aldstadt. But we were all pretty exhausted at this point so were happy to walk down, do a little shopping, and get another beer with one of Lydia’s friends from Notre Dame. Great conversation with Steve and his parents, and then we uber’ed back to our hotel, hit the sauna, and crashed for the night. Tomorrow - Cologne!