Große Grotte
Große Grotte stands in the gardens of Heidelberg Castle, within the terraced Renaissance landscape of the Hortus Palatinus. Its portal combines banded rustication, a broken gable, and animal sculptures supporting the inner gate pillars. Crouching wild boar and bear figures sit below two stags.
Salomon de Caus planned the garden for Elector Frederick V, with construction taking place between 1616 and 1619. Stones, shells, and corals once covered the interior, creating an artificial cave with daylight entering through the ceiling. Water flowed over a rocky slope, while hidden jets and water-powered mechanisms surprised visitors with sprays, movement, and sounds.
The grotto also opened onto playful fountains and other water features within the garden. In front of its entrance, the sandstone sculpture Father Rhine still represents the river god of the Rhine. Many surrounding sculptures later moved to Mannheim and Schwetzingen, leaving this grotto among the surviving fragments.
- City
- Heidelberg
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Image: Immanuel GielPublic domain
Take this page with you
The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Heidelberg. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.