Roy Turner
A photographer from Bury
HEIDELBERG - A PLACE TO COME BACK TO
Heidelberg is a University town, which can trace its beginnings to the fifth century.
A favourite place of my namesake, the artist J.M.W. Turner, the Market Place stands a short side street walk to the Alte Brücke, the Old Bridge crossing the Neckar to the north side of the town.
A well-known lovers' haunt the Philosophenweg snakes through steep vineyards as it overlooks the river, the town of Heidelberg and its Castle. The Philosopher's Way is a place to pass a quiet few minutes near the gardens.
A twenty minute train ride took me to the medieval village of Neckarsteinach on a rainy morning which offered little in optimism. The village is built astride a tributary of the river Neckar and is home to its castles, no less than four dating to between 1100 and 1230 and built by the family Landschad von Steinach.
The castle in Heidelberg itself is a mixture of styles, ranging from the Gothic to Renaissance. In his travel book, ‘A Tramp Abroad’, Mark Twain described the castle as "deserted, discrowned, beaten by the storms, but royal still, and beautiful".
‘A place to come back to’.