Germany Tour Day 1 - 16th Sept

Frankfurt – Eisenach – Weimar

The hotel’s buffet breakfast was interesting with lots of different cuisine. The thing to note is lots and lots of cheeses… lots of different cheeses. The other interesting breakfast foods were fried herring, pork pate and what looked like some kind of pickled sardine on a stick…

I was just not brave enough to try… Well our guided bus tour is underway. The first stop was Eisenach which was the birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach in 1685 and he lived there until he was 10 yrs old. They have set up a museum and you can see the Bach house. Also down the road is the house where Martin Luther resided for a time after being released from his exile at Wartburg Castle. The street is actually named Lutherstrauβe.

After a brief stop in Eisenach we drove up to Wartburg Castle. I was really keen to see the castle where Martin Luther lived in 1521-2 following his confrontation with the Holy Roman Emperor at the Diet of Worms and subsequent excommunication from the Catholic church.

The castle was built in 1067 by Count Ludwig der Springer (Ludwig the Leaper). The road up to the castle is very steep as it sits on top of a mountain. The castle has had many inhabitants in its time and was also the home of Catholic saint Elizabeth.

There is a tour of the castle that goes through the various rooms that each look quite different depending on when they were altered or furnished.

There is a very grand concert hall where Wagner's music was first performed.

The last room you come to on the tour is Luther’s room where he lived in 1521-22. It is very modestly furnished. This was where he translated a German version of the Bible. An interesting thing to note whilst looking around the room was that next to his desk was a big whale vertebra – just seemed very random to me.

In the afternoon we reached the city of Weimar where we did a walking tour of the city. Our tour guide is a musician so likes to tell us about music history. In Weimar we were able to see Lizst’s house. Weimar is famous for being the home of two of Germany’s prolific writers – Schiller and Geothe. There is a monument of the two of them outside the town hall. On our walking tour we also learned a little about Bauhaus architecture.

Walking a little more, there was a yellow wall on which a couple of plaques tell you that it’s the remains of the place where Johann Sebastian Bach used to live and also Hans Christian Anderson. Nearby there is a bust memorial for Johann Sebastian Bach. Just around the corner of this is the music conservatorium which our guide tells us is considered one of the top conservatoriums in Germany. Outside the conservatorium there is a statue of a man on a horse. He was Carl August who was the ruler of the region in the early 1800’s.

Our hotel is just out of town. The tour guide reckons it's about a 20 min walk... but we had some free time and I started to walk towards the town before turning back as I would be late for dinner. The area is very green with a beautiful park with a lake across the road from the hotel. Would love to have seen more of Weimar but we only get a taste on this tour.