Erfurt

Travel times from Wiesbaden:
Train – 3 hours, 15 mins.
Car – 2 hours, 40 mins.
 
Travel to the east to Erfurt, where Goethe also traveled both on business and privately. He liked the city so much that he called it “Thuringia’s Rome.” A number of buildings in Erfurt have Goethe inscriptions:

• Thuringian State Chancellery (former governor’s residence where Goethe met Napoleon in October 1808)
• “Haus Vaterland” (Weimar dukes’ escort house; Goethe’s offices in Erfurt when he was minister for roads)
• Dacheröden House (home of the Dacheröden family, whom Goethe visited frequently)
• Imperial Hall (formerly university ballroom; 1808 Royal Congress; prose version of Friedrich Schiller’s “Don Carlos” premiered in the presence of the writer)

You can also visit nearby Weimar, the “City of Schiller and Goethe,” but there is plenty to see in Erfurt before making this detour. Erfurt’s compact Altstadt (Old Town) makes for easy exploration of its many neighboring historic sights. The Domberg (Cathedral Hill) thrusts impressive twin cathedrals above the city’s rooftops. The hike up the 70 steps from the Domplatz is worth it to see the treasures of the 14-th century St. Mary’s Cathedral and the 13th- century St. Severus.

Many visit the city as a pilgrimage destination of sorts to see where Martin Luther studied, to bow heads where he prayed, to walk the same medieval streets, and even to sleep where he slept. Luther came to the University of Erfurt as a student in 1501, served as a monk in the Augustinian Monastery starting in 1505 and was ordained as a priest in the St. Mary’s Cathedral in 1511. The Augustinian Monastery, dating back to 1277, houses an exhibition that shows the life and work of its resident of six years, Martin Luther. At almost every turn, there’s a reminder of the man who launched the Reformation. But there is far more to this city than Luther.

The Krämerbrücke (Merchant's Bridge), built in 1325, is completely covered by houses on both sides. The original 62 narrow houses on the bridge have over time been amalgamated to form the present 32 houses, and it is recognized as the longest bridge of its kind in Europe. Also not to be missed is the Petersberg Citadel, one of the few of nearly completely preserved Baroque Citadels in Europe.

This beautiful city has bloomed into the reputation of Europe’s “Flower City.” A city of parks and gardens, it boasts Germany’s largest flower bed (6,000 square meters) in the ega-Park. The “ega” is a gardening exhibition center built around the 500-year-old Cyriaksburg fortress and is a testament to man’s ability to find harmony with nature in landscape gardening. Just behind the train station, City Park rises with a series of stone terraces. The old Brühl Park, built as a refuge for nobility in the 18th century and now gone quite literally to seed, is being tamed and manicured.