Urlaub 1 (holiday) - Weimar and Erfurt

It's summer now, which means holiday time all over Europe. Many countries have standard 5 or 6 weeks holidays per year, and now is the time to take it.

We've had a few trips over the past few months - a few day trips here and there, plus a few longer ones. We've meant to write some entries about them but never got around to finishing them.

To try and catch up a bit, we've got a few shortish posts.

Over the Easter weekend (we told you we are catching up!) we went with some friends, Paul and Nancy, to explore the cities of Weimar and Erfurt. They are two of the major cities in the state of Thuringer, which is one of the neighbouring states to ours (we live in Sachsen or Saxony). We travelled by train with a special weekend ticket that allows 5 adults to travel together for only 30 Euros for a whole day's travel. Bargain!

Weimar is a beautiful city with neat cobblestone streets and is full of buildings with character. After world war I, the new democratic German constitution was formed in Weimar, hence the name "Weimar Republic". Unfortunately, there were some insurmountable problems resulting from the depression and reparations payments that caused this system of government to be taken over and replaced by the Nazis. Here's one of the castles that has been added to over the years. Sometimes it seems as if almost every historical building in Europe was burnt down and rebuilt several times.

Lots of famous people lived in Weimar, including Goethe (German writer), Schiller (German writer), Liszt (musician), Nietzsche (philosopher), Cranach the elder (artist). You can visit houses they lived in and there are museums everywhere. See the narrow purple house? Cute huh?

Erfurt is a really old city. Not all of it is like this, but here's a spot which has maintained its narrow cobblestoned street. We think the groove down the middle was where the sewage flowed.


Erfurt has LOTS of churches. It's one of the cities where Luther lived and preached. Here is a photo of the church he was at.

This is the inside of a bombed out church that is now used as a museum. We're not sure if this might have been used as a set for a scene in the recent movie "Luther".