Heidelberg is a highly recommendable city – as one million tourists a year who visit this 100,000 inhabitant city can confirm. Although such conclusions always remind me of a T-shirt I saw (and should have bought) on my India vacation. It said „India is a wonderful country – one billion Indians cannot be wrong“. But I can really say that living and working in Heidelberg feels really good, I am at home. It also feels a bit far off from reality, as if one just entered some isolated utopia: University graduates, students from all over the world, Japanese, Americans, other tourists, the castle, the old bridge, the banks of the Neckar river with barbecuing, reading, guitar or ball playing or just relaxing people, the Philosophers’ walk, the oldest university on German territory (AD 1386), lawyers, economy students, the German Cancer Research Centre, an ideal world.
Even occasional, mostly work-related doubts – why would such a peaceful and ideal city need an institute of forensic medicine? – cannot destroy the picture. Even the newspaper Spiegel realized this not long ago and published an article titled “Heidelberg – real existing romance” that starts with the words “Heidelberg is better than Disneyland” (article in German). While cities in the region every once in a while have to struggle with homicide and manslaughter (Weinheim [10 miles from here]: Helpless police is on the phone while woman is murdered), we keep on drinking Capri Sun (although that proceeds from Eppelheim, which is an independent city very close to Heidelberg), teach the subject “Happiness” at high school, sing along with our regional hymn, the Bad’ner Lied, rejoice when the soccer club TSG Hoffenheim wins, are angry that two stolen bikes a day make our crime statistic increase unnecessarily, and hit the news with a gay mayor who marries his boyfriend and sues the city for discrimination [for links to articles in German see German version of this blog].
And that’s it…
The last really upsetting events where I can still vividly remember the newspaper articles are the murder of the 12 year old student Vanja Elena by some random pervert (11/30/2000) and the Ziegelhausen triple murder (12/23/2002) committed by a cigarillo smoking guy on welfare from Mannheim – both tragic, both solved, both some time ago. Even WWII, which ended in the devastation of many German cities – such as nearby Mannheim – was survived by Heidelberg mostly unaffected. An elderly neighbor commented that one of the most impressive moments during that war was when a bush in his neighbors’ frontyard started burning due to an erratic bombing, which also destroyed some of the beautiful colored glass windows of St. Raphael Church on the same block. He was far more shocked when revolting students vandalized, threw out and burnt the altar of the very same church in the late 1960s. And even that was almost 40 years ago…
So, come to charming Heidelberg, it’s absolutely beautiful here. One million tourists a year cannot be wrong…
Even occasional, mostly work-related doubts – why would such a peaceful and ideal city need an institute of forensic medicine? – cannot destroy the picture. Even the newspaper Spiegel realized this not long ago and published an article titled “Heidelberg – real existing romance” that starts with the words “Heidelberg is better than Disneyland” (article in German). While cities in the region every once in a while have to struggle with homicide and manslaughter (Weinheim [10 miles from here]: Helpless police is on the phone while woman is murdered), we keep on drinking Capri Sun (although that proceeds from Eppelheim, which is an independent city very close to Heidelberg), teach the subject “Happiness” at high school, sing along with our regional hymn, the Bad’ner Lied, rejoice when the soccer club TSG Hoffenheim wins, are angry that two stolen bikes a day make our crime statistic increase unnecessarily, and hit the news with a gay mayor who marries his boyfriend and sues the city for discrimination [for links to articles in German see German version of this blog].
And that’s it…
The last really upsetting events where I can still vividly remember the newspaper articles are the murder of the 12 year old student Vanja Elena by some random pervert (11/30/2000) and the Ziegelhausen triple murder (12/23/2002) committed by a cigarillo smoking guy on welfare from Mannheim – both tragic, both solved, both some time ago. Even WWII, which ended in the devastation of many German cities – such as nearby Mannheim – was survived by Heidelberg mostly unaffected. An elderly neighbor commented that one of the most impressive moments during that war was when a bush in his neighbors’ frontyard started burning due to an erratic bombing, which also destroyed some of the beautiful colored glass windows of St. Raphael Church on the same block. He was far more shocked when revolting students vandalized, threw out and burnt the altar of the very same church in the late 1960s. And even that was almost 40 years ago…
So, come to charming Heidelberg, it’s absolutely beautiful here. One million tourists a year cannot be wrong…
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