Old Bridge - Alte Brücke

One of the most visited places in the city of Heidelberg is "Old Bridge" with its 9 elegant looking arches. Painters and poets perpetuated them in many paintings and poems. Even Goethe was fascinated by its elegance and wrote down in his diary on the 26th of August 1797: This bridge is as beautiful as no other bridge all over the world ...

Even if this bridge is officially named after the elector Carl Theodor, who ordered it in the late 18th century, the citizens of Heidelberg always call it "Old Bridge"! It is made of red sandstone and the idea was to replace the former wooden constructions, which were frequently destroyed because of high waters and ice movements. The first wooden bridge at this place was mentioned in the 13th century, written down in the chronicals. But the Romans probably had a wooden bridge near by this place, too.

If you take a walk over the bridge from the north, you are passing sculptures on your left side. They are showing four icons of the most important rivers in this area: "Rhein" (Rhine), "Neckar", "Mosel" and "Donau", as well as the builder-owner Carl Theodor. On the south end of the bridge you can see a huge doorway, built in the 15th century. In middle age it was part of the city wall. During restaurations in 1788 both tower roofs of the bridge were newly designed in a baroque way.

Very popular is a sculpture on the right side of the towers which is showing a monkey. It is a remake of the first famous "Heidelberg's bridge monkey", which was destroyed in the palatine war of succession between 1689 and 1693. The remake is an interpretation, made by the sculptor Gernot Rumpf.