But Hirschhorn is best seen from a distance, down the river. Then the clustered brown towers perched on the green hilltop, and the old battlemented stone wall, stretching up and over the grassy ridge and disappearing in the leafy sea beyond, make a picture whose grace and beauty entirely satisfy the eye.
Hirschhorn (Neckar) is a small town in the Bergstraße district of Hesse, Germany, and is known as "The Pearl of the Neckar valley”. Hirschhorn is a climatic health resort situated in the Geo-Naturpark Bergstraße-Odenwald.
Steam navigation on the Neckar was introduced in 1841 and meant a moderate economic upturn. Horse-drawn barges finally disappeared from the river in 1878, when a seventy-mile-long chain was put on the river bed on which tugs could pull themselves upstream or downstream. A lot of bargemen became redundant and lost their jobs
From Bædeker The Rhine from Rotterdam to Constance: 1873 page 176
Hirschhorn (* Zum Naturalisten ) , a small town most picturesquely situated at the foot of a lofty sandstone rock crowned with the ancient castle of the famous barons of Hirschhorn , who founded the Carmelite monastery at the foot of the hill in 1406 . The tastefully constructed chapel of the latter , with its pointed towers and numerous tombstones of the noble family of the founder, is still preserved . The Erschheimer Capelle, standing a considerable height above the Neckar , also contains tombstones of the family. Charming retrospect of the town and castle from the road to (6 m . )