The German Pharmacy Museum

The German Pharmacy Museum is a collection housed in ten rooms within Heidelberg Castle that presents the history of medicines and healing practices. The displays include containers, tools, dried plants, and recipes that show how people treated illnesses in earlier times.

In the 16th century, the court physician Philipp Stefan Sprenger created medicinal gardens on the castle grounds to grow healing plants for the electoral court. This early effort later became the foundation for the museum and demonstrates the site's long connection to medical knowledge.

The collection includes intact interior spaces of pharmacies from different periods, showing how apothecaries were arranged and used in daily life. These preserved rooms reveal how medicines were displayed and sold, and what role these shops held in their communities.

The museum sits on a hillside within the castle, so be prepared for stairs and slopes when moving between rooms. Plan to spend an hour or two walking through the ten rooms at a comfortable pace.

The domed Apothecary Tower contains laboratory equipment and reconstructed interior spaces from actual pharmacies dating from the 17th to 19th centuries. These complete shop fronts were dismantled from their original locations and reassembled here, offering a rare look at how these businesses operated.