West of the Bridge Gate, the Heidelberg Bridge Monkey now holds a mirror up to those who look at it. The bronze sculpture by Professor Gernot Rumpf was installed there in 1979. But there was a bridge monkey in Heidelberg as far back as the 15th century.

The legend surrounding this curious statue tells us that it symbolizes the fact that neither the city-dwellers nor the people who lived outside the city were better than the other, and that they should look over their shoulder as they cross the bridge to remember this.