Baden-Wurttemberg Region History

Heidelburg. The city of so much history, everywhere you turn, everything you see so old and beautiful.

Heidelberg is a city and suburb located 18 km by road north-east of Melbourne's CBD and 80 metres above sea-level. The Yarra River forms the eastern boundary of the City of Heidelberg which incorporates the suburbs of Banyule, Eaglemont, Ivanhoe, Darebin, Rosanna, View Bank, Macleod and Yallambie. The area is principally famous for its associations with a crucial aspect of Australia's art history. In the mid-1880s a loose association of painters, including Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, C.D. Richardson, Charles Conder, Walter Withers, Jane Sutherland, Clara Southern and Emma Boyd (the wife of Arthur Boyd) began adapting the ideas of the French impressionists to Australian conditions. Often painting in the open air to capture the nature of Australia's light, colour and atmosphere, they initially carried out much of their experimental work at Box Hill. The group (with the exception of McCubbin) moved on to Eaglemont at Heidelberg later in the decade, thus acquiring the name 'The Heidelberg School'. The Heidelberg City Festival is held annually in March.

Great, used record shops for such a small town.
Got history everywhere in this town!

A male orientated city of about 250,000. There is heaps to do, the Schloss parks, the natural history museum, the summer festivals and the Xmas market. There are man made lakes every in summer and the black forest is right at the doorstep. The ZKM is a nice place to be and there are lots of good pubs and restaurants. Pity about the dialect though at least it is a friendly place to be in the summer time. The old barracks of the Afrika korps where Rommel trained his troops still exists though under another disguise. And there is the American air field and where a base used to exist.

Cool stuff to see around Heidelberg: Follow the river Neckar to the east. There will be different Castles along the Neckar every 5 to 8km until you reach Heilbronn. When you are on top of one castle, you usually can see the last and the next one from there. Some of them are preserved, but a lot of them are just ruins (thus free to enter and usually safe to walk in), the atmosphere is great nevertheless.

If you have a car, use it! There are also Buses going, but you have to be punctual not to get stuck somewhere. More history happened in the region where Germany is today, than just the last 100 years.