Weimar

We recently took a day trip to the little town of Naumburg. Upon arrival we had an hour or so before our tour through the Cathedral there, and Dr. Cothran let us loose to get some lunch and explore a little bit. The buildings in the downtown square were very unique looking, because they all had an exorbitant number of doghouses on them.

 I later found out that the windows were there for the production of special blue dye that is derived from the Waid plant. There were lots of interesting little shops and stuff to investigate, and I got a souvenir or two for my family. I also saw the most epic mustache that I have ever seen. The possessor of the mustache actually had it tucked in behind his ears!

On our tour through the church we were able to go into the attic/roof of the church. The church was being built at the beginning of the Gothic period, and it was interesting to see the architectural changes that were implemented in the construction. We then scaled one of the towers and enjoyed the view of the city from 90 m high.

 At the top of the tower our guide pointed out small hooks on the roof of the church, and informed us that they were there to keep the snow from falling off of the roof in one solid sheet – Smart! Oh yeah…it was also very windy at the top of the tower.

After finishing up in Naumburg we were off to a wine tasting in Bad Sulza. On the way there we drove though some very pretty countryside and I am pretty sure our bus driver got lost, but we eventually made it. 

Before the tasting we toured through the wine production facility and we were able to see the process from harvest to shipping of the final product. The tasting took place in a rustic looking wine cellar, and we had a nice dinner of meats and cheeses to complement our first wine. Our first wine was a very sweet and fruity white wine which was a mixture of different white wine grapes. The second wine we sampled was a Riesling, which was my favorite (I bought a bottle). We also tried a Gewürztraminer and a couple others.

The day after we went to Naumburg we had another day trip to Erfurt. Erfurt is the capital of Thüringen, and is much larger than the small town of Naumburg and even Weimar. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Amsterdam. We were given a guided tour through the city, and my groups guide was an old Russian guy – who was hilarious. During our tour he would randomly stop and say something or point out something funny and then be back on his way. We even had a Mr. Kim moment! He stopped and pointed out a water fountain that was built as a memorial, and asked us if we knew what it was supposed to look like. None of us knew, and he replied “Neither do I” and kept on walking. He also pointed out small recesses on either side of the doors on very old buildings. In the old days, the water was not fit to drink, and as a result nearly everybody had to drink beer. Only licensed people were allowed to brew and serve beer, but licensing was an issue, because very few people were literate. As a result they devised a more straightforward method of licensing. They put two big holes by the sides of the doors at certified breweries and when the breweries had beer they filled the holes with straw.

The tour was very enjoyable, but as soon as it was over a lot us elected to head straight back home since we had been assigned copious amounts of homework. That’s ok though, because after all of our homework was turned in we had yet another day trip to Eisenach! Eisenach was home to both Bach and Martin Luther, and we were fortunate enough to tour each of them. The Bach house has been turned into a museum, and half of the museum is the house and the other half is an ultra-modern addition to the house.

The museum houses some of Bach’s instruments as well as other rare instruments and articles from his life. Our guide through the house also took some time out to play several different pieces by Bach on a couple different instruments. The Luther House was a classic looking German frame house, and it too contained various and sundry articles from Luther’s life.

After checking out both of the houses we went for a climb up the Wartburg Castle. (By the end of this trip I am going to be a stair master, because we do a whole lot of climbing and going up stairs!) Anyways, the castle dates back to 1068, and is also the place where Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German in 1521. The view from the castle was phenomenal, and Goethe is said to have frequented the castle for the view.

After touring the castle we had the option of going to a car museum… for me this was not an option, but rather a must! The museum had a couple awesome BMW roadsters from the 30’s,

and also some EMW’s. EMW stands for Eisenacher Motorenwerk, and was the soviet precursor to BMW. 

It was amazing to see the dinky little engines they put in the soviet cars. They were tiny little three cylinder two-stroke engines. I felt like I could pretty pick one up without assistance. In 1954 EMW changed its name to Automobilwerk Eisenach (AWE) and made a car named after the castle in Eisenach- The Wartburg.

On Thursday we spent the day in Leipzig, and when I say the day I mean the whole day! We left Weimar at 8:25 and didn’t get back until half past midnight. The ride to Leipzig took about two hours by bus, and when we arrived we hit the ground running. We took tour of the city which included the St. Thomas Church, the St. Nicholas Church and Auerbach’s Keller. The St. Thomas Church is the Church in which Johann Sebastian Bach was Cantor, and the St. Nicholas Church was a major site for the Monday demonstrations near the end of the DDR. After the tour we had a quick break for lunch, and we were able to pop into a local brewery the “Brauerei an der Thomaskirche” and sample their wares. I had a Pils and it was probably the best (pils) that I have had in Germany. After Lunch we toured through DDR history museum. The museum was pretty cool, and it was interesting to see some of the things that I had learned about in my Berlin seminar last semester. After our tour of the museum we had another brief break for dinner and then we were off to see an Orchestra perform some of Bach’s music.

I enjoyed the music thoroughly, but a few of my peers had a bit of a hard time staying awake. We later found out that the interpretation that we had listened to was written for one of the Kaisers so that he could fall asleep at night…so I guess you can’t blame them. I found plenty of interesting things to look at while we were there though, so I managed to stay awake pretty well. The oboe player was very into playing his oboe, and his antics while playing were rather enjoyable to watch. There was also another epic mustache. I wasn’t quite able to snap a picture of it, but it was pretty much a straight line that extended along his face all the way over to his eyebrows. He definitely earned some creativity points for that one.