Holy Spirit Church, Heidelberg

Holy Spirit Church, Heidelberg tickets: which one to buy

The Church of the Holy Spirit stands in the market square in the middle of Heidelberg's old town, below the castle, and entry is free with a donation box. The tower is ticketed and cheap, about two hundred steps, and gives the classic view along the roofs to the castle and the river. Walking tours of the old town include the church, the university buildings and the student prison, which is a genuine curiosity and separately ticketed.

The funicular to the castle leaves from a station three minutes away and the castle ticket includes it; buy the combined version. The church is a working Protestant parish with frequent concerts, many of them free, and it closes to visitors during services. It receives well over a million visitors a year and is among the most visited churches in Germany. The shops built into the church walls sell jewellery and prints and are open on normal trading hours.

Visiting Holy Spirit Church, Heidelberg: what to see

The church was built between 1398 and 1515 as the burial place of the electors of the Palatinate and as the showpiece church of their capital, and it once held the Bibliotheca Palatina, the greatest library in Germany, in galleries above the aisles; the books were carried off to Rome in 1623 and only a fraction ever came back. The electors' tombs were destroyed in the war of succession at the end of that century and only the grave of the founder survives.

The building has changed denomination more than ten times, and for some three hundred years a wall divided it down the middle so that Catholics used the chancel and Protestants the nave at the same time; the wall came down in 1936. Small shops are built into the outer walls between the buttresses, as they have been since the Middle Ages, and still trade. A gallery runs above the aisles and once carried the library shelves, and its stonework is still visible.

Holy Spirit Church, Heidelberg opening hours and the best time to go

The church opens through the day and closes for services and concerts; the tower has shorter hours and shuts in winter and in high wind. The market square outside holds a produce market on certain mornings and a Christmas market through December, one of several spread along the old town streets. Heidelberg is busy from spring to autumn and especially with coach groups in summer; early morning and evening are the calm hours.

The castle illumination, staged three times a year in summer with fireworks over the river, fills the town. Term time brings the students back and the bars with them. Allow half an hour in the church, plus the tower, and keep the old bridge and the philosophers' walk across the river for the late afternoon. Organ recitals are held on Saturday afternoons through the summer and are free with a collection.