Story and Photos by Monique Burns.
Feature image: At the annual Luther Festival in Eisenach, the one-time home of 16th-century Protestant Reformer Martin Luther, two costumed actors debate the finer points of the Bible, which Luther famously translated into German. (Photo: Andreas Weise, Courtesy of Thuringia Tourism)
Leaving Weimar on the fifth—and final—leg of my odyssey through eastern Germany, I carved out a few days to visit Eisenach, the one-time home of the great 18th-century composer Johann Sebastian Bach and of Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant Reformer whose hymns inspired the famed composer. I had already explored Germany’s great capital of Berlin, swooned over the artistic glories of Dresden, hiked in the craggy sandstone mountains of Saxon Switzerland, and walked in the footsteps of the great poets and philosophers Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller in Weimar. It was time to visit Eisenach and pay tribute to several other remarkable Germans, namely Johann Sebastian Bach and Martin Luther.
After a 48-minute train ride aboard the high-speed Intercity Express (ICE), I found myself in Eisenach on the northwestern edge of the Thuringian Forest, about 30 miles west of Erfurt, Thuringia’s capital. Site of the medieval-style Luther Festival each August, Eisenach is renowned for historical attractions like the Bach House, the Luther House, and Wartburg Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999. But it’s also known for its high-tech and century-old automobile industries, celebrated at Automobile World Eisenach, whose shiny vintage cars attract kids and adults alike. Only 40 square miles, Eisenach is a small but important cultural and commercial hub.
Not surprisingly, Eisenach has more than 60 hotels in all price categories. I stayed at the four-star Göbel’s Sophien Hotel, part of a family-owned chain of about 20 small hotels in central and northern Germany. Only a five-minute walk from Eisenach’s central train station, the Göbel’s Sophien Hotel is close to virtually all major attractions. And, like so many hotels in formerly Communist East Germany, this four-star lodging site has remarkably reasonable rates. When booked on the hotel website, doubles start at only $70.
Reasonable rates at Göbel’s Sophien buy you a wealth of amenities. In addition to well-appointed rooms—and an underground parking garage—the hotel boasts Fräulein Sophie, a spacious, art-filled dining room serving international specialties, and the cozy Fireplace Lounge & Lobby Bar. A wellness center offers a Finnish wood-fired sauna, a fitness room, and spa treatments. Try the salt room, whose relatively new respiratory therapy improves breathing, helps with chronic lung conditions like asthma, and even softens skin.
You’ll be well cared for at Göbel’s Sophien. But for sheer elegance, book the Vienna House by Wyndham Thüringer Hof Eisenach, one of Wyndham’s 40 Vienna House properties in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Switzerland. Along with 127 contemporary-style rooms and an underground parking garage, the Wyndham Thüringer Hof has a fitness area with a Finnish sauna, high-end exercise equipment, and a rooftop terrace. Doubles start at an unbelievably affordable $130. Or spring for the Penthouse Suite, with a separate living room and its rooftop terrace overlooking the lush Thuringian Forest, for less than $250.
If you’re on a tight budget, stop into the Vienna House for a drink at the bar overlooking the Martin Luther Memorial statue on Karlplatz. Or enjoy a meal at Leander, the hotel’s stylish restaurant, which serves a bountiful buffet for breakfast and new German and international specialties for lunch and dinner.
Armed with the Weimar Card Plus, which provides free museum admission and transportation in Weimar, Eisenach, and other Thuringian hotspots, I walked a few blocks south to the center of Eisenach’s Old Town, the Market Square. The centerpiece is the Güldenmannsbrunnen, a fountain topped by a gilded statue of St. George slaying the dragon. Steps away, at 12th-century St. George’s Church, I paid initial respects to Johann Sebastian Bach at the stone baptismal font where the composer was christened in 1685.
St. George’s Church also has significant connections to Martin Luther. The Protestant Reformer, who wrote almost 50 hymns, including the well-known “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” attended St. George’s Latin School and sang in the boy’s choir just as Bach would two centuries later. On the run after the 1521 Edict of Worms declared him an outlaw for his heretical views, Luther went into hiding in nearby Wartburg Castle—but not before stopping to preach a fiery sermon in St. George’s Church.
The big whitewashed Luther House, one of Thuringia’s oldest half-timbered houses, is only a few blocks south of the Marktplatz. The restored contemporary-style museum features the recently updated permanent exhibit, “Luther and the Bible.” Poring over various original artifacts, I viewed several copies of the Bible, which Martin Luther famously translated into German in 1522. As part of Germany’s ongoing effort to memorialize victims of the Holocaust, as well as Eisenach’s ongoing attempt to update the Luther House experience, there’s a newer special exhibit. “Study and Eradication: ‘The Church’s Dejudaization Institute,’ 1939-1945” explores the anti-Semitic institute that regrettably sprang up in Eisenach, under the Protestant church’s aegis, during World War II.
In Luther’s time, centuries before photography, film, and the Internet emerged, art was a significant means of recording history and conveying ideas. Not surprisingly, the Luther House has a splendid collection of 15th and 16th-century paintings and religious statuary. Keep an eye peeled for Luther’s portraits from the workshop of his friend and spiritual ally, Lucas Cranach the Elder. One painting depicts a sturdy Luther in his prime; another shows him, years later, in peaceful but deathly repose.
While visiting the Luther House, you’ll also see residential areas where the young Martin Luther lived with the family of Lord Mayor Conrad Cotta from 1498 to 1501 while attending St. George’s Latin School. Luther was so happy during his boyhood days in Eisenach that he always referred to the city as “my dear town.”
Following the avenue, Lutherstrasse a few blocks southeast, I soon reached the Bach House in Eisenach, where musician and composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685. The world’s first museum dedicated to Bach and one of Germany’s most prominent museums devoted to a single musician, the Bach House consists of a 15th-century house—two conjoined houses—plus a contemporary addition.
Threading through a series of small rooms with ancient wood floors, low, wood-beamed ceilings, and period furnishings, I felt transported back to the era when Bach, his first and second wives, and his surviving brood of 20 children lived. Though Bach visited Eisenach frequently, historians now believe that the musician and his family never lived in the Bach House. Still, they’re pretty sure that some of his relatives did.
The Bach House Contemporary Museum has a fine collection of Bach memorabilia, including paintings, plaster busts, and hand-scored sheet music. Hanging from the ceiling are Plexiglas bubble chairs where you can sit and sway while listening to Bach on headphones. The museum’s centerpiece is The Walkable Composition, a circular room where visitors can see and hear Bach’s works projected on a 180-degree curved screen. One is the Christmas Oratorio performed by the boy’s choir of St. Thomas Church in nearby Leipzig. That’s the same choir Bach directed more than 200 years ago as Cantor of St. Thomas, where he lies buried beneath a large bronze plaque.
For a Bach fan like me, the Walkable Composition, a thrilling immersion into the composer’s music, was spiritual and salubrious. I emerged feeling both relaxed and uplifted. Another high point: the 20-minute concert on baroque organs, harpsichords, and clavichords held every hour on the hour in the downstairs Instrument Hall. After the concert, I visited the Hall’s priceless collection of baroque instruments. Then I strolled around the garden, browsed through the music CDs, biographies, and other Bach memorabilia in the museum shop, and enjoyed a snack in the café, famous for its “Bach cubes,” little square cakes baked steps away at the town’s popular Konditorei Brüheim.
From the Bach House, some Eisenach visitors continue their stroll south to the Reuter-Wagner Villa, an Italian Neo-Renaissance mansion housing an extensive collection devoted to the famous 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner. Wagner is more commonly associated with Leipzig, where he was born in 1813; Dresden, where many of his operas premiered at the ornate 19th-century Semper Opera House; and Bayreuth, the site of the world-famous summer festival celebrating his operas.
Eisenach is directly connected with one of Wagner’s best-known works—the 1845 opera, Tannhäuser, which is based on the legendary Minstrels’ Contest held in Wartburg Castle in 1207. Visit the Wagner Villa, then consider heading to Wartburg Castle. The 40-minute walk follows the Luther Adventure Trail from the Marktplatz along the Schlossberg road, which winds, sometimes steeply, up through the Thuringian Forest. More athletic types can reach the Wartburg by bike on either the Städtekette or the Herkules-Wartburg cycle path. Speedy and comfortable taxi, train and bus service to the castle can also be found right in the center of town.
Towering over 1,300 feet above Eisenach, the 11th-century Wartburg, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999, is one of Germany’s most beautiful and historic castles. Though you can explore independently, consider taking the 45-minute guided tour. Given in English at 1:30 p.m. daily, you can see many rooms that you would not see otherwise. After the tour, explore the castle and grounds for another hour or so.
At Wartburg Castle, the Minstrels’ Contest, immortalized in Wagner’s opera, Tannhäuser, was held in medieval times, an event celebrated in the castle’s stunning 19th-century frescoes. Recounting the life of 13th-century St. Elisabeth, gilded mosaics created in the early 1900s decorate the Elisabeth Bower and splendid frescoes adorn the Elisabeth Gallery. Daughter of the King of Hungary, Elisabeth married Thuringian ruler Ludwig IV. She became known for such charitable acts as establishing a hospital for paupers and spinning wool to clothe them. Her husband once chided her for hiding bread under her cloak to feed the poor. But, when Elisabeth opened her cloak, red and white roses fell out. After Elisabeth’s death, many healing miracles occurred, and in 1235, she was canonized by the Catholic Church.
In more modern times, Wartburg Castle was the site of the 1817 Wartburg Assembly when students from the nearby University of Jena, now renowned for high-tech research, met to lobby for Germany to become a united country under a liberal constitution. Though it would be another century until a democratic constitution was signed in 1919, establishing the so-called Weimar Republic, the colors of one fraternity’s flag—red, black, and gold—were chosen to replace Hitler’s swastika on Germany’s post-war national flag in 1949.
Its connection with Protestant Reformer Martin Luther is probably the most compelling of all Wartburg’s historical associations. After Luther was declared an outlaw on May 25, 1521, Prince Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, had masked men intercept him in the forest and carry him to safety in Wartburg Castle. Disguising himself as itinerant country squire Junker Jörg, Luther grew a beard and hid in Wartburg Castle for ten months.
There, he translated the Bible from ancient Greek into German, completing the New Testament in only 11 weeks. Though there had been other German translations of the Bible, Luther’s New Testament proved to be the most readable and timely. Arriving just as Luther and other reform-minded preachers made common folk rethink their Roman Catholic faith, the New Testament’s widespread dissemination propelled the Protestant Reformation.
Today, you still can see the room in Wartburg Castle where Luther completed his remarkable translation. The large wood-paneled room, where knights were once imprisoned, is simply furnished with a rough-hewn, trestle-style desk, a carved wooden chair, and a green tiled stove. Steps from the Luther Room is the Wartburg Castle museum. Created at the suggestion of Weimar poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, it contains a wealth of precious artworks. Be sure to see Lucas Cranach the Elder’s 1527 portraits of Martin Luther’s parents: His father Hans, a copper miner and smelter from Eisleben, and his stern-faced mother Margarethe, who, interestingly enough, was born in her son’s “dear town” of Eisenach.
After spending several days soaking up history, culture, and the good life in Eisenach, I bid a fond and final farewell to Eastern Germany. I then caught a high-speed Intercity Express (ICE) train for the two-hour trip west to Frankfurt Airport and my transatlantic flight home.
IF YOU GO: For flights to Berlin, contact German national carrier Lufthansa. For train travel between Berlin, Dresden, and other cities in Saxony and Thuringia, purchase the German Rail Pass. For Eisenach hotels and in-house dining, visit Göbel’s Sophien Hotel or Vienna House by Wyndham Thüringer Hof Eisenach. For attractions, log on to St. George’s Church, Luther House, Bach House, Reuter Wagner Villa, Wartburg Castle and Automobile World Eisenach. For more information on Eisenach, visit Eisenach Tourist Information, Eisenach Tourism and Visit Thuringia. For Martin Luther sites in Thuringia and Saxony, visit Lutherland. For general information, log on to Germany Travel.
For “An Eastern Germany Odyssey, Part One: Berlin Portrait,” read: https://travelexaminer.net/an-eastern-germany-odyssey-part-one-berlin-portrait
For “An Eastern Germany Odyssey, Part Two: Glorious Dresden,” read: https://travelexaminer.net/glorious-dresden-an-eastern-germany-odyssey
For An Eastern Germany Odyssey, Part Three: The Saxon Elblands,” read: https://travelexaminer.net/an-eastern-germany-odyssey-part-three-the-saxon-elblands
For An Eastern Germany Odyssey, Part Four: Cultured Weimar, read: https://travelexaminer.net/an-eastern-german-odyssey-part-four-cultured-weimar
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