DESTINATION IDEAS
   England
   Germany
   Italy
   France
   Austria
   Belgium
   Croatia
   Ireland
   Wales
   Switzerland
   Castles
   Museums
   Cathedrals
   War History
   Family Travel
   Wine & Food
   Motorsports
   Romantic Hotels

Germany Heidelberg image

HEIDELBERG
HOTEL DEALS

BARGAIN SEARCH
HOTELS
AIRFARES
AUTO & RAIL

Germany Rail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bargain Travel Europe guide to Europe on a budget for unusual destinations,
holiday travel tips and secret spots missed by travel tours.

Get the Latest Offers from Lufthansa!Lufthansa


TWAIN HOTEL MYSTERY IN HEIDELBERG
Mark Twain Slept Here – Or Was it Over There

Crown Plaza Hotel Heidelberg photo“I don’t know anything about that, and I’ve lived here all my life,” the attractive young lady behind the counter at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Heidelberg replied to my inquiry whether Mark Twain had stayed in the hotel. “I think that was over at the Hirschgasse.” So, despite the darkening hour and the chill, across the river to the Hirschgasse I trod, a healthy walk. “This wasn’t a hotel then,” said the young man working his way as a student at Heidelberg’s University manning the desk at the boutique luxury hotel reknowned for its Le Gourmet restaurant. “He just ate here. He came for the dueling.” The Hirschgasse was an inn where the student fraternity clubs hung out in the 19th Century, away from the main city, to engage in a common ritual of duels in the courtyard when a high born fellow would gladly bear a sword scar to his cheek to prove his collegiate bonafides (see Heidelberg Student Prison).

Old Bridge Neckar River photoSo, back I went across the old Karl Theodor bridge, the lights glowing orange on the red sandstone of the ancient city on the banks of the Neckar River. Upon informing the girl at the Crown Plaza that the other hotel did not claim that Twain had slept there, she perked up. “Oh, I looked it up on the web and it says that was the Alt Heidelberg, which is just down the street”. So, with deepening determination to get to the bottom of this quandary, to the desk of the Alt Heidelberg I trundled, just a long block from the Crowne, to finally put a nail in the mystery. “What? I never heard that,” was the reply of the girl on duty at the Alt Heidelberg.

Hotel Hirschgasse Heidelberg photoI have now followed Mark Twain half way across the world. Perhaps as time goes on, I’ll follow him the rest of the way. Viewing his writing desk and his toilet in Virginia City Nevada where he began his writing career as a columnist and reporter for the Territorial Enterprise as Samuel Clemens (see Mark Twain Museum Virginia City), to the gold fields of Calaveras California (see Mark Twain Cabin) where he set his story of the Jumping Frog which launched his national awareness as Mark Twain, and the hillsides of San Francisco, where he reported on the foibles of the pioneer class pretending to urbanity.

Mark Twain's Travels

Mark Twain Portrait imageAfter achieving success as a novelist, Mark Twain began traveling, making the European “Grand Tour”, using his wanderings for material, reporting his journeys, first in “Innocents Abroad” and later when more successful and less innocent “A Tramp Abroad”. I have seen his signature scratched in the window pane left from the birth house of Shakespeare, the man from Stratford-Upon-Avon whom he believed to be as fictional as his own non de plume (see Shakespeare Birthplace). His signature can be found on the wall of a restaurant in Vienna (see Greichenbeisl Vienna), and his face in a bar on Mt Rigi where he pursued walking ventures in the mountains of Switzerland above Lake Lucerne (see Mt Rigi Railway).

Mark Twain Village Barracks US Army Europe Marker photoI had found myself in Heidelberg Germany and curious of the Twainster’s mysterious sleeping habits. Okay, perhaps not an earth shattering mystery, but more a detection challenge. The American humorist on his second journey walking through the wonderland of old European capitals, stopped in Heidelberg in 1878. He apparently intended to stop for a day, but instead stayed for almost three months. Mark Twain’s association with Heidelberg is such that his name adorns an apartment complex barracks at the American Army Europe base (the base closed in 2013). The mystery, why he stayed so long, and where he laid his head upon his first night, perhaps with my own thought to stay a night where Twain slept.

"Scholss Hotel" in Tramp Abroad

All is generally agreed where the author resided during his long tenure, the Schloss Hotel, named in his book “A Tramp Abroad” a lodging located on a steep mountain slope over-looking the Neckar, gazing upon Heidelberg’s famous castle (see Heidelberg Castle). The former Schloss Hotel is no longer a hotel, but an apartment building of upscale exclusive real estate, recently renovated into a multistory nuisance which rises above the hillside trees that most Heidelbergers agree despoils the romantic view of the castle. The less certain is Twain’s first night.

Crown Plaza Schreider photoTwain wrote of his first day in Heidelberg of staying in a hotel near the rail station, and describing in humorous detail the pomp and falderal accompanying the arrival of the Grand Duke and Duchess of Baden, staying at another hotel in his view, watching the scene from his window over breakfast. Two local official tourist guides both had said the hotel where he stayed was now the Crowne Plaza, formerly a hotel called the Hotel Schrieder. This reference is mentioned in a guide book about Mark Twain in Heidelberg by Werner Pieper “Mark Twain's Guide to Heidelberg”, which can be found in local book stores. The hotel was indeed in place when Mark Twain visited the city. Although Heidelberg’s current main train station is about a kilometer away, built in 1955, moved to better handle the increasing rail connections through Baden, the original station was indeed across the way in the now open grassy area at the end of Bahnhofstrasse - a significant clue.

Twain's Alt Heidelberg

Alt Heidelberg Exzellenz Hotel photoThe opening of the 2nd chapter of Twain’s book describes his being in one hotel and viewing the antics of a hotel porter in the other, which was the grander as befitting a Duke and Duchess. The Alt Heidelberg, now officially the Exzellenz Hotel, is close enough to the Crowne Plaza for a guest at one to view the goings on at the other, but perhaps not closely enough for significant detail. The Alt Heidelberg is indeed old enough a building to be credible, but began life as a private residence, and was not a hotel when Mark Twain arrived. The Bayerischerhof is another charming hotel near the former train station which has stood since the mid-19th Century, though without a clear view.

Hotel Bayerischerhof Heidelberg photoThe two blocks surrounding the corner of Rohrbacher Strasse and Bahnhof Strasse are now filled with modern structures of shopping malls and office fronts with the hotels which served the old rail station wiped away by the ravages of bomb damage and urban renewal. The more magnificent hotels of the time where nobility would have stayed are gone. When the central rail station was built in 1840, the area was mostly open countryside a distance from the old city with its hotels of past centuries centered around the Church of the Holy Ghost and Town Hall (see Hotel Ritter St Georg). By the late 19th Century the Bahnhof Strasse area was bristling with hotels. What is now the Crowne Plaza was built in 1838 as the Hotel Ernst. It was acquired by Herr Schreider in 1845 and sold to another hotielier in 1865, so would have had yet another name in 1878. It had a reputation of being a good elegant hotel with a lower cost at the time and may have indeed attracted the traveling author.

Grand Hotel Heidelberg

Grand Hotel Illustrated imageThe Grand Hotel Heidelberg was directly next to the square, across from the eastern end of the Crown Plaza, next to where the Seegarten Health Clinic stands and might have provided a view of royal arrivals. Nearby, a block away from the train station was the Hotel L'Europa or Europaisherhof, built in 1863 and still remaining one of Heidelberg's finest luxury hotels, which in 1878 had a view of the Hotel Victoria, named for the Queen of England and popular with foreign royalty at the time, now gone, which could also have been the choice of the dignitaries. Twain describes viewing a grand staircase in the hotel he was observing, which none of the surviving hotels possess.

Footsteps of Mark Twain

I won’t presume to solve the mystery and perhaps the guidebook and tourist guides are correct. But none of the properties in question seem confident enough to claim a Mark Twain bedroom, so perhaps there is space left for further detection. The tourism office in Heidelberg offers an “In the Footsteps of Mark Twain” guided tour in English, and as for the hotels, all are worthy of your own explorations and inquiries. © Bargain Travel Europe

Best hotel and vacation deals in Heidelberg on TripAdvisor

Web Info
Mark Twain Tour

These articles are copyrighted and the sole property of Bargain Travel Europe and WLPV, LLC. and may not be copied or reprinted without permission.

See Also:

FAMOUS HEIDELBERG CASTLE

GIANT WINE BARREL OF HEIDELBERG CASTLE

PHILOSOPHERS WALK - A POETS VIEW

HOLLANDER HOF HOTEL HEIDELBERG

MARK TWAIN ON THE ELBE - HAMBURG HARBOR