An Evening on the Neckar: Why Heidelberg Kept My Heart

Some walks stay with you because of what you see, and some because of how the place makes you feel while you are seeing it. The path along the Neckar in Heidelberg belongs to the second kind. I have taken it often, and it still makes me stop and ask myself the same question: could I have been living anywhere lovelier?

Along the water

The river is the first thing. It moves slowly at this hour, holding the last of the light, and the castle ruins above the town take the sunset full in the face. Looking up at those broken walls, you cannot help wondering whether the misfortunes of centuries could ever be undone. The stone has outlasted the people who caused them, which is some kind of answer.

I lose myself in the water the way I always do, watching the surface and the glaze of it. Then a cool breeze arrives from nowhere, moves around me, and for a moment nothing else matters. The tree-covered hills on the far side seem to cradle the city, holding it in a bowl of green. How long did that forest take to grow? A friend once wondered the same thing, not long ago, and the question comes back to me every time I look at it.

The Alte Brücke over the Neckar, with the castle in the distance.

The boat, the birds and the people

I was smiling at the thought when a falcon landed on a roof, poised as if about to launch itself at the sky. Then the Alte Heidelberg came across the river, a boat full of passengers who waved at the shore with real enthusiasm. The wake spread out behind it and disturbed the geese and ducks, who honked and quacked their way out of the way.

The bank was full of people doing very little. Couples sat in the sun. Parents watched toddlers take their first unsteady runs. Children climbed and swung and shouted without fear. A rower passed, moving slowly, apparently somewhere else entirely inside his own head.

A mile further on

About a mile towards the Alte Brücke I found corners of the bank I had never explored before, which is the quiet pleasure of a walk you think you know. In the distance the Bergbahn was crawling up its steep track, and I remembered the ride I once took with friends, and how the whole city opened out below us.

By the time I turned for home, the question had become rhetorical. My heart knew the answer and so did my mind. I had never been happier living anywhere else.

On the Banks of the Neckar

The river keeps the last of the light,
and the castle wears its ruin without complaint.
I ask the hills the question I always ask:
who planted this green, and how long did it take?
A falcon waits above the water.
The boat named for the old city pushes past,
and strangers raise their hands as if to me.
Geese complain, ducks complain, the ripples spread.
Further on, a rower drifts inside his own weather,
parents watch their children run at the swings.
I have lived elsewhere and been content.
Not like this. Heidelberg, you have my heart.