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Roots Earth in Heidelberg: audio stories about 40 places

Roots Earth has audio stories about 40 places in Heidelberg, Germany, in Europe. The Heidelberg stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Heidelberg, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 40 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: heidelberg.md

The 40 places in Heidelberg with audio stories

In the order the app shows them.

  1. Heidelberg Castle
  2. Old Bridge (Karl Theodor Bridge)
  3. Church of the Holy Spirit
  4. Philosophers' Way
  5. Heidelberg University
  6. Old University and University Museum
  7. Heidelberg Tun (Great Vat)
  8. Hauptstrasse
  9. Studentenkarzer (Student Prison)
  10. Palatinate Museum
  11. Königstuhl
  12. Heidelberg Funiculars
  13. Hortus Palatinus (Castle Gardens)
  14. Heiligenberg
  15. Thingstätte
  16. St. Peter's Church
  17. Church of Providence
  18. Heidelberg University Library
  19. Heidelberg Zoo
  20. Botanical Garden of Heidelberg University
  21. Prinzhorn Collection
  22. Ethnographic Museum Heidelberg
  23. President Friedrich Ebert Memorial
  24. Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma
  25. Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory
  26. Bismarckplatz
  27. Heidelberg Central Station
  28. Neckarwiese
  29. Zum Roten Ochsen
  30. Bergfriedhof
  31. TSV Handschuhsheim Rugby
  32. Weststadt
  33. Bergheim
  34. Rohrbach
  35. Südstadt
  36. Kirchheim
  37. Ziegelhausen
  38. Bahnstadt
  39. Neuburg Abbey
  40. Patrick Henry Village

Is there an audio guide for Heidelberg Castle?

Yes. Heidelberg Castle has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

It is place 1 of the 40 Heidelberg places in the app, at 49.41056, 8.7153. Every one of the other 39 places in the list above has the same two stories.

Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself.

How to use Roots Earth in Heidelberg

Open Roots Earth and choose Heidelberg. The city has its own map of places with all 40 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 40 places in Heidelberg, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 40 places in Heidelberg, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. Heidelberg Castle

Coordinates
49.41056, 8.7153
In one line
A sandstone palace turned romantic ruin above the Neckar, home to the Palatinate electors for centuries. Wrecked by French armies and lightning, its half-collapsed Renaissance facades and sweeping valley views draw millions of visitors each year.

2. Old Bridge (Karl Theodor Bridge)

Coordinates
49.41434, 8.70954
In one line
The elegant sandstone bridge across the Neckar, built between 1786 and 1788 for Elector Karl Theodor. Famous for its twin gate towers, its bronze bridge monkey, and the classic view of the castle rising above the old town.

3. Church of the Holy Spirit

Coordinates
49.41222, 8.70944
In one line
Heidelberg's main Gothic hall church, begun in 1398 on the central market square. For over two centuries a partition wall split it between Catholic and Protestant worshippers, and its gallery once held the celebrated Bibliotheca Palatina library.

4. Philosophers' Way

Coordinates
49.415, 8.70028
In one line
A scenic hillside path on the south slope of the Heiligenberg, facing the castle across the Neckar.

5. Heidelberg University

Coordinates
49.41028, 8.70639
In one line
Germany's oldest university, founded in 1386 by Elector Rupert the First. Counting dozens of Nobel laureates among its scholars, it has shaped Heidelberg's identity for more than six centuries and remains one of Europe's leading research institutions.

6. Old University and University Museum

Coordinates
49.41111, 8.70611
In one line
The Baroque main building of Heidelberg University, begun in 1712 and named the Domus Wilhelmiana for Elector Johann Wilhelm. It houses the ornate ceremonial Great Hall and the university museum on the central Universitätsplatz.

7. Heidelberg Tun (Great Vat)

Coordinates
49.4105, 8.7152
In one line
A colossal wine vat built in 1751 in the cellars of Heidelberg Castle, holding around 219,000 litres. Among the largest barrels ever made, it carries a dance floor on top and the legend of its guardian, the court jester Perkeo.

8. Hauptstrasse

Coordinates
49.4116, 8.7055
In one line
Heidelberg's central artery, running roughly 1. 8 kilometres through the Old Town from Bismarckplatz to the Karlstor. Pedestrianised in stages by 1978, it ranks among Germany's longest shopping streets, lined with Baroque facades, cafes and bookshops.

9. Studentenkarzer (Student Prison)

Coordinates
49.4108, 8.7059
In one line
Heidelberg University's old student prison, used until 1914 to confine students for minor offences. By the nineteenth century a stint inside had become a badge of honour, and inmates covered the cell walls with elaborate graffiti, silhouettes and crests still preserved today.

10. Palatinate Museum

Coordinates
49.41139, 8.70278
In one line
Heidelberg's city museum of art and archaeology, housed in the Baroque Palais Morass on the Hauptstrasse. Founded in the late 1870s, it ranges from a cast of the Homo heidelbergensis jaw and Roman finds to Tilman Riemenschneider's Altar of the Apostles of 1509.

11. Königstuhl

Coordinates
49.39806, 8.72611
In one line
The highest summit of the Odenwald above Heidelberg, rising to about 568 metres.

12. Heidelberg Funiculars

Coordinates
49.40725, 8.71499
In one line
Heidelberg's two-section funicular railway, climbing from the Kornmarkt past the castle to the Königstuhl summit. The lower line opened in 1890 and the upper in 1907, the latter still running vintage wooden cars on one of Germany's oldest electric mountain railways.

13. Hortus Palatinus (Castle Gardens)

Coordinates
49.4111, 8.7175
In one line
The Renaissance gardens of Heidelberg Castle, begun in 1614 by Salomon de Caus for Elector Friedrich V. Praised in its day as the Eighth Wonder of the World, it was never finished, halted by the Thirty Years War, and survives as terraces, grottoes and statuary.

14. Heiligenberg

Coordinates
49.42583, 8.70611
In one line
The wooded hill rising north of the Neckar opposite Heidelberg Castle. Layered with a Celtic hillfort, a Roman shrine to Mercury, the mysterious Heidenloch shaft and the ruins of two medieval monasteries, it carries thousands of years of sacred and settled history.

15. Thingstätte

Coordinates
49.42333, 8.70639
In one line
A vast open-air amphitheatre built into the Heiligenberg by the Nazi regime in 1934 and 1935 for staged propaganda spectacles. Today its silent stone tiers, ringed by forest, serve as a haunting reminder and an occasional event site.

16. St. Peter's Church

Coordinates
49.40944, 8.70583
In one line
Heidelberg's oldest parish church, with roots in the 12th century and rebuildings in Gothic, Baroque and neo-Gothic style. Long the university church, its walls hold around 150 professors' epitaphs and modern stained glass by Johannes Schreiter.

17. Church of Providence

Coordinates
49.41111, 8.70194
In one line
A modest Baroque church on Heidelberg's Hauptstraße, built between 1659 and 1661 as a Lutheran parish. Its name honours Elector Karl Ludwig's motto, that the Lord will provide, and reflects the town's tangled history of competing faiths.

18. Heidelberg University Library

Coordinates
49.40973, 8.70586
In one line
The library of Germany's oldest university, founded in 1386, housed since 1905 in an ornate red-sandstone building by Josef Durm. Its treasures include the Codex Manesse, the richest illustrated collection of medieval German love poetry.

19. Heidelberg Zoo

Coordinates
49.41528, 8.66083
In one line
A compact riverside zoo on the north bank of the Neckar, opened in 1934 and championed by Nobel laureate Carl Bosch. Rebuilt after wartime destruction, it now holds around 1,400 animals across some 170 species and draws roughly 600,000 visitors a year.

20. Botanical Garden of Heidelberg University

Coordinates
49.4167, 8.6694
In one line
One of Germany's oldest botanical gardens, founded in 1593 as a university medicinal garden and at its present Neuenheimer Feld site since 1915. Across two hectares and large glasshouses it cultivates more than 14,000 plant types, strong in orchids, succulents and bromeliads.

21. Prinzhorn Collection

Coordinates
49.40977, 8.68875
In one line
A renowned collection of art made by psychiatric patients, assembled at Heidelberg's university clinic around 1920 by Hans Prinzhorn. Long neglected, it opened as a public museum in 2001 and profoundly influenced Surrealism and the idea of art brut.

22. Ethnographic Museum Heidelberg

Coordinates
49.41187, 8.7137
In one line
Housed in the Baroque Palais Weimar on Hauptstraße, this museum holds around 40,000 objects from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Founded in 1919 by the mineralogist Victor Goldschmidt, it is the von Portheim Foundation's only institute to outlast the Nazi era.

23. President Friedrich Ebert Memorial

Coordinates
49.41278, 8.70833
In one line
Friedrich Ebert, Germany's first democratically elected head of state, was born here in 1871, in a tailor's cramped flat. Opened in 1962, the memorial preserves his birthplace and traces, across ten rooms, his rise from saddler's apprentice to president of the Weimar Republic.

24. Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma

Coordinates
49.41067, 8.71089
In one line
Opened in 1997, this centre holds the world's first permanent exhibition on the Nazi genocide of the Sinti and Roma. Across three levels it documents that crime and six centuries of the minority's history in Germany, led by survivor advocate Romani Rose.

25. Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory

Coordinates
49.3986, 8.7208
In one line
High on the Königstuhl hill, this state observatory was inaugurated in 1898. Under Max Wolf its astronomers pioneered photographic sky surveys and discovered hundreds of asteroids, including the Trojan Achilles in 1906. It joined Heidelberg University's astronomy centre in 2005.

26. Bismarckplatz

Coordinates
49.40943, 8.69316
In one line
Renamed Bismarckplatz on 3 November 1875, this square marks the western end of the Hauptstraße. Built over a filled-in river harbour, it is now Heidelberg's busiest transport hub, where trams and buses converge between the Old Town and Bergheim.

27. Heidelberg Central Station

Coordinates
49.40361, 8.67528
In one line
Opened in 1955 to a modernist design by Helmuth Conradi, Heidelberg's central station replaced an 1840 terminus near the Old Town. Its glass-walled main hall, listed since 1972, marked the city's postwar arrival on the long-distance rail network.

28. Neckarwiese

Coordinates
49.41278, 8.68889
In one line
A long grassy meadow on the Neckar's north bank in Neuenheim, facing the Old Town and castle.

29. Zum Roten Ochsen

Coordinates
49.4118, 8.7123
In one line
A historic student tavern on Hauptstraße, serving since 1703 and run by the Spengel family for generations. Its dark wood, carved benches and walls covered in old student insignia make it one of Heidelberg's most storied inns.

30. Bergfriedhof

Coordinates
49.39722, 8.69028
In one line
A park-like hillside cemetery laid out in 1844 on the slopes of the Gaisberg. Its winding terraced paths and mature trees shelter the graves of figures including Friedrich Ebert, Robert Bunsen, Carl Bosch, Max Weber and Hilde Domin.

31. TSV Handschuhsheim Rugby

Coordinates
49.4246, 8.6788
In one line
A historic sports club in the Handschuhsheim district, founded in 1886, whose rugby section plays in Germany's top division. National champions in 1957 and repeat cup winners, the club helped make Heidelberg the heartland of German rugby.

32. Weststadt

Coordinates
49.4, 8.68333
In one line
An elegant residential district built as Heidelberg expanded west along the railway in the late 19th century. Its Wilhelminian villas and apartment houses, leafy squares and the tall tower of the Christuskirche make it one of the city's best-preserved Gründerzeit quarters.

33. Bergheim

Coordinates
49.40778, 8.68417
In one line
first documented in 769 and built over Roman ground. Today a busy district between the Neckar and the old town, it holds the main railway station, a university campus and clinics, mixing deep history with modern city life.

34. Rohrbach

Coordinates
49.38, 8.68722
In one line
A former wine-growing village south of Heidelberg, first mentioned in 766 and incorporated into the city in 1927. It keeps an old village core, a medieval church and a small castle now used as a clinic, with roots far older than the surrounding city.

35. Südstadt

Coordinates
49.39361, 8.68583
In one line
A southern district shaped by the United States Army, which held barracks and family housing here for decades. Since the military left in 2013, the former Campbell Barracks and Mark Twain Village have been transformed into a fast-growing new residential and cultural quarter.

36. Kirchheim

Coordinates
49.37722, 8.66556
In one line
Heidelberg's largest southwestern district, first recorded in 767 as Chirichheim. Long a farming village along the Rhine Valley railway, it was absorbed into the city in 1920 and is home today to roughly sixteen thousand residents.

37. Ziegelhausen

Coordinates
49.41833, 8.75667
In one line
A riverside district on the northern bank of the Neckar at Heidelberg's eastern edge, climbing into the Odenwald forest. Named for an old brickworks, it once thrived on the Neckar Valley laundry trade and hosted the composer Johannes Brahms in summer.

38. Bahnstadt

Coordinates
49.40222, 8.66611
In one line
Heidelberg's newest district, built since 2012 on a former railway freight yard west of the centre. Designed to the passive house standard across more than one hundred hectares, it ranks among the largest energy-efficient settlements anywhere in the world.

39. Neuburg Abbey

Coordinates
49.41889, 8.74083
In one line
A Benedictine abbey on the wooded heights above the Neckar near Heidelberg, founded in 1130 and dedicated to Saint Bartholomew. Suppressed in the Reformation and revived again and again, it has been home to Beuronese Benedictine monks since 1926.

40. Patrick Henry Village

Coordinates
49.378, 8.629
In one line
A former United States Army housing area southwest of Heidelberg, opened in 1947 and home to some sixteen thousand Americans at its peak. Closed in 2013, it now serves as a refugee reception centre and is planned as a future Heidelberg district.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

  • No account
  • Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection
  • Audio stories in English and German in every city, and in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian in 126 of the 130 cities

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