To celebrate the 148th birthday of our national hero José Rizal (he was born on June 19, 1861), let me point you to the first street outside the Philippines that was named in his honor. This is the José-Rizal-Straße (José Rizal Street) in Wilhelmsfeld, Germany (see this photo of the street sign, plaque, and a tourist kid), formerly named Pfarrgasse and was renamed in June 1964. Wilhelmsfeld, which is near Heidelberg, is where Rizal wrote the some of the last chapters of his celebrated work, the Noli Me Tangere.

The street named after Rizal is the address of the house (#7) of Reverend Karl Ullmer, with whom Rizal stayed with in Wilhelmsfeld. To celebrate this friendship, a fountain at Ullmer’s residence was brought to Manila and can now be found at Rizal Park in Manila. In addition, Karl Ullmer himself has a way dedicated to him called Karl-Ullmer-Weg (see this tourist’s photo), and this is located near the Catholic Church and the José-Rizal-Park which, when I find out where it is exactly, I will feature in a future post.

To see the street more clearly, go to the location in Google Maps then switch to Map view or enable Labels under the Satellite view tab. To learn more about Rizal and Wilhelmsfeld, check out this web page (in German though) at the Wilhelmsfeld website.

Download KML file (for Google Earth)