The red sandstone ruin of the Prince Electors of the Palatinate, eighty metres above the Old Town and the Neckar.
Ride the funicular up, stand on the Great Terrace, walk around a wine barrel the size of a house, then find the split tower the French left behind in 1693.
Ticket zone, spelled outWhat the castle ticket covers and what is free
Interiors, told straightNo online tour goes inside; the castle's own tour does
Free cancellationUp to 24 hours before on every guided tour here
Secure checkoutBooked on GetYourGuide, with the operator named on each page
Tours
Choose your Heidelberg Castle tour
In the centre, the guided walk that bundles the castle ticket and the funicular. Either side, the city-by-bus
version with a German-speaking guide and the half day from Frankfurt. Every card opens a full tour page.
An hour of Heidelberg by bus with a certified guide, then an hour in the castle courtyard and the Great Tun, and the funicular back down. The listing names German as the only tour language.
What's included
About one hour of city sightseeing by bus
About one hour in the castle grounds, courtyard and Great Tun
A two-hour guided walk through the courtyard, the Great Terrace and the barrel cellar, with the funicular ride and the castle ticket in the price. The listing states that the castle interiors are not part of it.
What's included
Funicular ride from the Kornmarkt to the castle
Castle courtyard, Great Terrace and Great Tun cellar
About an hour from Frankfurt by road, the castle courtyard and barrel cellar with a guide, then a walk through the Old Town and some free time. The listing states a minimum of four passengers.
What's included
Transport from Frankfurt and back
Admission to the castle courtyard and the Great Tun
Three questions settle it. Are you already in Heidelberg or coming from Frankfurt? Do you want a guide in English?
And do you mind that no online tour enters the buildings?
The castle's own guided tour of the interiors is bought at the castle cash desk and runs on a published
timetable in English and German. Every guided tour above lists free cancellation up to 24 hours before; the HeidelbergCard does not.
Before you book
Everyone sees the courtyard. Nobody online sees the rooms.
Every Heidelberg Castle tour sold on GetYourGuide follows the same route. Up to the Kornmarkt, the funicular or the
Burgweg, through the gate tower into the courtyard, the Friedrichsbau facade with its sixteen statues, the Great Terrace
with the Old Town below, then down the stairs to the Great Tun. The guide tells the story of the electors, the French and
the lightning. The Apothecary Museum is in the ticket if you want it.
The part no online tour includes is the inside of the buildings. The furnished rooms of the Friedrichsbau and
the chapel are shown only on the castle's own guided tour, booked at the cash desk, hourly in English through the summer.
The listings that mention it say so plainly. Plan it as a separate hour, after your tour or instead of it.
1890
The year a commission settled the "monument dispute" and decided to keep Heidelberg Castle
a ruin, restoring only the Friedrichsbau. What you see is a decision, not neglect.
Guided walkBus and castleFrom FrankfurtPrivate guideCity card
The Friedrichsbau, built 1601 to 1607 and the only wing restored after the 1890 decision.
01
What is in the ticket?
The funicular from the Kornmarkt, the courtyard, the Great Terrace, the Great Tun and the German Apothecary Museum.
02
What is free?
The garden terraces, the Scheffel terrace view and the Elizabeth Gate, in daylight hours, all year.
03
What needs more?
The interiors: the castle's own guided tour, a supplement sold at the cash desk. The audio guide is a separate hire too.
04
Who should skip the climb?
Nobody has to: the funicular is in the ticket. The Königstuhl tour excludes under-12s and asks for sure feet.
Your visit
How a castle visit runs
Two hours for the ticketed parts, three with the gardens, four if you take the castle's interior tour as well. This is the shape of it.
01
Kornmarkt to Schloss
Funicular from the Old Town valley station, two minutes up the hillside, or ten to fifteen steep minutes on foot up the Burgweg.
2 to 15 minutes
02
Garden, gate, bridge
Cross the Stückgarten past the Elizabeth Gate, then the bridge and gate tower, where the ticket zone starts.
15 minutes
03
Courtyard and terrace
Friedrichsbau, Ottheinrichsbau, the Hall of Glass, then the Great Terrace with the Old Bridge and the Neckar below.
40 to 60 minutes
04
Tun and museum
Down to the barrel cellar and Perkeo, then the Apothecary Museum in the Ottheinrichsbau, and the funicular back.
45 to 60 minutes
Plan your visit
Plan your Heidelberg Castle day
Hours, the ticket, the interior tour timetable and the funicular: one tab each.
Courtyard, Great Terrace and Great Tun: daily 9:00 to 18:00, last admission 17:30, holidays included.
24 and 31 December: 9:00 to 14:00. 25 December: closed. 1 January: 11:00 to 18:00.
Apothecary Museum: 10:00 to 18:00 from 1 April to 5 January; 10:00 to 17:30 from 6 January to 31 March.
The castle ticket covers the funicular (Kornmarkt to Schloss and Molkenkur, out and back), the courtyard, the Great Terrace, the Great Tun and the Apothecary Museum.
Sold at the castle cash desk, the Kornmarkt and Schloss funicular counters and the tourist information offices. Reduced rate for children from 6, students to 28 and others with proof; anyone 15 or over pays the adult rate unless they qualify.
Online, the same ticket comes inside the HeidelbergCard and inside the guided tours on this page. GetYourGuide sells no standalone castle ticket.
An annual ticket exists; it does not include the funicular.
English, 28 March to 1 November: Monday to Friday hourly 11:15 to 16:15; weekends and holidays hourly 10:15 to 16:15.
English, 2 November to 26 March: Monday to Friday 11:15, 12:15, 14:15 and 15:15; weekends and holidays hourly 11:15 to 15:15.
German tours run on the hour, from 11:00 on weekdays and 10:00 at weekends in summer.
About an hour. Bought at the castle as a supplement to the ticket; family and group rates exist. Nothing on GetYourGuide includes it.
Funicular: from the Kornmarkt valley station behind the town hall; bus 33 or 20 from the Hauptbahnhof to the Bergbahn stop. Every ten minutes.
On foot: the Burgweg from the Kornmarkt, ten to fifteen minutes, steep cobbles and steps; a gentler route without steps also exists.
Königstuhl: the historic upper funicular from Molkenkur to the summit at over 550 metres is a separate ticket, every twenty minutes.
By car: Graimbergweg is closed for works until about the end of 2026; access is via Neue Schlossstrasse. Parking is tight, so most visitors leave the car in town.
Height80 metresAbove the Old Town and the Neckar, on the north slope of the Königstuhl.
First recorded1225The castle's own history gives 1225 for the first documented mention.
Destroyed1689 and 1693Burned, then mined, by the troops of Louis XIV. Lightning finished it in 1764.
Great TunAbout 220,000 litresBuilt 1751 for Elector Karl Theodor. Empty for a very long time.
VisitorsAbout a million a yearThe castle's own figure. Early morning and late afternoon are the quiet hours.
Refund24 hoursFree cancellation on every guided tour here. The HeidelbergCard is non-refundable.
Where it is
Where the castle stands
Above the Kornmarkt, in the ticket
Schlosshof 1, 69117 Heidelberg. Funicular from the Kornmarkt valley station, bus stop "Bergbahn".
The castle sits eighty metres above the eastern end of the Old Town. Most tours meet in the Old Town below, at the
Kornmarkt by the Madonna fountain, at the tourist information on Neckarmünzplatz or at the Sebastian-Münster fountain on
Karlsplatz, and ride the funicular up together. The Frankfurt tours drive you to the hill and walk you in.
Funicular Kornmarkt to Schloss: about two minutes, every ten
Burgweg on foot: ten to fifteen steep minutes
Hauptbahnhof to Kornmarkt: bus 33 or 20, about fifteen minutes
Every guided tour on this page lists free cancellation up to 24 hours before on GetYourGuide. The HeidelbergCard listing is non-refundable.
The castle opens in all weather; the courtyard and terrace are outdoors, the Tun and the museum are under cover.
The funicular closes for an annual safety inspection of about two weeks, usually in late winter. From 4 October 2027 to 7 April 2028 both lines are due to be suspended for bridge works, with a replacement bus.
The Königstuhl tour runs in any weather and asks for sure feet; the boat trip is not for anyone prone to seasickness.
50 minutes · Boat, a drink included · Neckarstaden 25, by the Old Bridge
Every tour on this page looks down from the castle. The boat looks up at it: under the Old Bridge, past the Philosophenweg, with the red ruin above the roofs for the whole fifty minutes. Book it for a different hour from your castle visit.
A million people a year walk up to a building that has been a ruin for longer than it was a palace. Here is
what they are looking at, and how to see it well.
A residence, then a wreck
The Counts Palatine of the Rhine built their first castle on this spur in the early 13th century; the castle's own history
gives 1225 for the first record. Over three hundred years the fortress became a Renaissance residence, wing by wing: the
Hall of Glass, the Ottheinrichsbau from 1556 with one of the earliest Renaissance palace facades north of the Alps, the
Friedrichsbau of 1601 to 1607 with sixteen ancestors in stone on its front, the English Building for Elizabeth Stuart. Then
the Thirty Years' War, then the French. In March 1689 the troops of Louis XIV set fire to the castle and blew the front off
the Fat Tower. In May 1693 they came back and mined what still stood. The split Powder Tower in the moat is their work.
The electors moved their court to Mannheim in 1720. Patched roofs went back on, and on 24 June 1764 two lightning strikes
burned them off again. From then on the castle was a quarry: the south wall went to build Schwetzingen Palace, and half the
Old Town has a castle stone in it somewhere.
The Powder Tower, mined by French troops in 1693. The fallen half has lain in the moat ever since.
Why it is still a ruin
A French count saved it. Charles de Graimberg arrived in 1810, stayed fifty-four years, guarded the ruin against
stone-takers, dug, collected and wrote the first guidebook. Painters and poets did the rest; Mark Twain, who lived here in
1878, wrote that "a ruin must be rightly situated, to be effective". When a call went out in 1868 to rebuild the whole castle,
the public revolted. A commission ruled in 1890: keep it as a ruin, restore only the Friedrichsbau. That is why one wing has
roofs and furnished rooms and the rest has sky behind its windows.
The honest small print: every tour sold online walks the courtyard, the terrace and the Tun. None of
them goes inside the Friedrichsbau. The rooms are on the castle's own hourly guided tour, bought at the cash desk, and it
is well worth the hour. Each of our tour pages says exactly what the ticket covers.
The ticket, the funicular and the free parts
The castle ticket, sold at the Kornmarkt funicular counter and at the castle, covers the funicular ride, the courtyard,
the Great Terrace, the Great Tun and the German Apothecary Museum. The garden terraces of the Hortus Palatinus, the Scheffel
terrace view and the Stückgarten with the Elizabeth Gate cost nothing and stay open in daylight all year. If you only have
twenty minutes and no ticket, the garden is where to spend them. Our ticket guide
goes line by line.
The Kornmarkt valley station: buy the castle ticket here and ride up with it.
Timing it
Go at nine, when the gates open, or after four, when the coach groups have left for Frankfurt and the light is on the
river side. The castle is open every day of the year except 25 December. Summer brings the interior tours hourly in
English; winter cuts them to four a day on weekdays. Autumn is the quiet, golden season on the garden terraces. Three
Saturdays a year the ruin is lit red and fireworks follow over the Neckar; the Old Bridge is where to stand.
The Great Terrace at the end of the afternoon, when the groups have gone.
Straight answers to what people ask most about Heidelberg Castle.
Is Heidelberg Castle worth seeing?
Yes, and for a reason most castles cannot offer: it is a ruin you walk through freely, with the Old Town and the Neckar laid out below the terrace. The castle itself calls it "probably the world's most famous ruins". Allow two hours for the courtyard, the Great Tun and the Apothecary Museum, three if you add the garden terraces. Our visiting guide has the full plan.
Do I need a ticket for Heidelberg Castle?
For the courtyard, the Great Terrace, the Great Tun and the German Apothecary Museum, yes: the castle ticket, sold at the castle cash desk, the funicular stations and the tourist information offices, covers all of them plus the funicular ride. The garden terraces and the Elizabeth Gate are free. See what the ticket covers.
Can I go inside the castle buildings?
Only on the castle's own guided tour of the interiors, a supplement bought at the castle that runs on a published timetable in English and German. None of the online tours include it: the listings that mention it say the grounds only. The tour takes you into the furnished rooms of the Friedrichsbau and the chapel.
Why is Heidelberg Castle famous?
For being a ruin. Until the Thirty Years' War it was one of the great Renaissance residences of the Holy Roman Empire; French troops burned and blew it up in 1689 and 1693, lightning finished it in 1764, and the Romantics made the wreck famous. In 1890 a commission decided to keep it as a ruin and restore only the Friedrichsbau. The whole story is in the history guide.
What happened at Heidelberg Castle in 1689 and 1764?
In March 1689 the French set fire to the castle and blew the front off the Fat Tower; in May 1693 they came back and mined the remaining towers and walls. After makeshift repairs, two lightning strikes on 24 June 1764 set the roofs alight, and the electors, by then living in Mannheim, never returned. For the next decades townspeople quarried the ruin for building stone.
Is the funicular included in the castle ticket?
The lower funicular from the Kornmarkt to the Schloss station is included in the castle ticket, out and back. The upper, historic line from Molkenkur to the Königstuhl summit is a separate ticket. You can also walk up in ten to fifteen steep minutes on the Burgweg. Details in the funicular guide.
How do I get to Heidelberg Castle from Frankfurt?
By train to Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof in about an hour, then bus 33 or 20 to the Bergbahn stop and the funicular, or on a guided half-day tour that drives you from Wiesenhüttenplatz by the main station and includes the castle ticket. Two of those are on this site; see the Frankfurt guide.
What is the best time to visit Heidelberg Castle?
Early morning, right after the gates open, or late afternoon when the coach groups have gone and the sun is on the Neckar side. The castle is open every day of the year except 25 December, with short hours on 24 and 31 December. The garden terraces stay open in daylight and are at their quietest in the evening.
What is the Great Tun?
A wine barrel the size of a small house in the castle cellar, built in 1751 for Elector Karl Theodor and holding roughly 220,000 litres when full. It has stood empty for a long time. A staircase leads to a platform on top that was once used as a dance floor, and the wooden figure of the court jester Perkeo stands opposite.
Which parts of Heidelberg Castle are free?
The castle garden, the Hortus Palatinus terraces with the Scheffel terrace view, and the Stückgarten with the Elizabeth Gate, all open during daylight hours. The ticket zone begins at the bridge and gate tower into the courtyard.
Is Heidelberg Castle the most beautiful castle in Germany?
Lists usually give that title to Neuschwanstein, which is a 19th-century palace seen on a timed guided tour. Heidelberg is a different thing: a Renaissance ruin you wander at your own pace, with the city view thrown in. Visit both if you can; compare them only on the terrace.
Can I cancel a Heidelberg Castle tour?
Every guided tour on this site lists free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start on GetYourGuide. The HeidelbergCard is the exception: its listing is non-refundable, and the card is personalised to your name.
Ready to book
Pick your tour, pick your day.
Castle ticket and funicular included on every tour here, and free cancellation up to 24 hours before on every guided tour.
German-language guide
2 hoursFree cancellation
