Handpicked experience · Frankfurt
Frankfurt, Germany
Two towns with opposite fates: one whose castle was blown up three centuries ago and deliberately left in pieces, and one flattened in 1945 and rebuilt to look as though nothing happened.
The wide views from the courtyard of Heidelberg Castle and from the Old Bridge across the Neckar
Heidelberg's long pedestrian Hauptstrasse, for cafés, shops and a walk by the river
Rothenburg's market square, the Plönlein corner and the ramparts you can walk
Time of your own in both towns for wandering, photographs and local craft shops
Heidelberg and Rothenburg are both sold as pictures of old Germany, and both are more complicated than that. One has been a ruin since the seventeenth century by choice; the other looks untouched because a great deal of money was spent making it look that way after 1945. Seeing them on the same day makes each one clearer.
The coach leaves Frankfurt for the Neckar valley and the castle above Heidelberg, then crosses country to the walled town in the Tauber valley, with time in each before the return.
The best thing to know before you climb up to it. French troops blew the fortress up twice in the wars of the 1680s and 1690s, and a lightning strike in 1764 ended the last attempt to make it habitable. It should then have been quarried for stone like any other wreck. Instead, Romantic writers and painters arrived and decided the ruin was better than the building — and when nineteenth-century plans were drawn up to restore it properly, a public campaign fought them off. The broken tower with half its wall lying in the moat has been kept broken, deliberately, for two hundred and sixty years.
Less widely noticed. The same French armies burned the town twice, so what looks medieval on the ground is eighteenth-century baroque raised on the medieval street plan. The proportions are old and the buildings are not.
In the castle cellar stands a wine cask built in 1751 that holds something over two hundred thousand litres, made from a hundred and thirty oak trees, with a platform on top used for dancing. Beside it is a statue of Perkeo, the court dwarf who guarded it and who was said to drink fifteen bottles a day; the story goes that he died shortly after being persuaded to try a glass of water.
The pairing that makes the day worth doing. Heidelberg came through the Second World War almost untouched, having neither industry nor a rail junction worth the bombs, which is why its baroque streets are original. Rothenburg lost around forty per cent of itself to an air raid on the last day of March 1945, including a long stretch of the walls. What stands there now was rebuilt over the following decades, and the reconstruction is good enough that most visitors never learn it happened.
Worth doing while you are up on them. The rebuilding of the wall was paid for by donations from around the world, and each contributor's name was cut into a stone plaque set into the section their money restored. Walking the circuit, you pass names from a dozen countries, including many from the country whose aircraft destroyed it. It is the most quietly moving thing in the town and almost nobody stops to read it.
Be clear-eyed about the shape of the day. There is around five and a half hours of driving in this itinerary — an hour to Heidelberg, a little over two between the towns, and the same again back to Frankfurt. That leaves roughly ninety minutes to two hours in each place. It is enough for a walk, a viewpoint and a coffee, and not enough for a castle interior and a museum as well. Pick one thing to go inside and let the rest be streets.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
French troops blew it up twice in the 1680s and 1690s, and lightning ended the last repair attempt in 1764. Romantic writers then made the ruin itself the attraction, and a public campaign defeated nineteenth-century plans to restore it.
The street plan is, the buildings mostly are not. The town was burned twice by the same French armies and rebuilt in baroque, though it did survive the Second World War almost untouched.
Substantially reconstructed. About forty per cent of it was destroyed in an air raid on 31 March 1945, including a long stretch of wall, and it was rebuilt over the following decades.
Names of the donors who paid for the rebuilding, cut into stone and set into the section each one funded. They come from a dozen countries, and walking the circuit reading them is the most affecting thing in the town.
A wine cask of 1751 holding over two hundred thousand litres, built from around a hundred and thirty oaks, with a dance platform on top. The statue beside it is Perkeo, the court dwarf who guarded it.
Around five and a half hours, which leaves ninety minutes to two hours in each town. Plan one interior visit rather than several.