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Mostly Saxon Christmas Markets
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Mostly Saxon Christmas Markets

Finally, the Christmas Market trip, but in a different part of Germany. Saxony, the home of German Christmas traditions, and Thuringia. もっと詳しく
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  • 旅行の開始
    2024年11月26日
    Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    We're Off...

    2024年11月26日, アメリカ ⋅ ⛅ 61 °F

    Bags: packed
    Paperwork: hopefully in order

    So this is the great big Christmas Market Trip, which we going to originally do in 2022,in Bavaria. I really wanted to see the market in Dresden, as it's the oldest, but it was too much of an outlier in those plans. If you followed our last trip, well, you'll known Christmas markets didn't happen because in 2021, they canceled them all at the last minute. We moved Bavaria to the late summer.

    But I was persistent, we were going to see what these Christmas Markets were really all about, and on our second attempt, I centered the trip on Dresden, where the main market will be celebrating its 590th anniversary. That led to a lot of new research, and the decision to focus our trip on Saxony, because in terms of German Christmas traditions, this is THE place to be, and most of the trip will be here except for a detour into the state of Thuringia to visit Erfurt and the Wartburg. Besides that: Leipzig, Dresden, Görlitz, Bautzen, Meissen, Freiberg, Saxon Switzerland and Königstein Castle, then the Erzgebirge-- from what I've been told by the smart folks on the Germany forum on Trip Advisor, is the home of German Christmas. Okay, one of them is from Dresden and has some bias towards his state, but the rest of them are from western Germany so...    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    In Transit

    2024年11月27日, ドイツ ⋅ ⛅ 39 °F

    Early arrival at Philadelphia airport, slightly different instructions from TSA, but we managed. The flight was less than full, something of a rarity for us when we travel, but we're happy about it. Left more or less on time.

    Now Philadelphia has suffered a demotion. Lufthansa now flies its alternative airline from our airport, Discover. Okay, maybe its budget airline, I don't know. Plane was fine. The same kind we flew on our first trip, a nice 2-4-2 arrangement so we didn't have to sit with a stranger.

    Food: we actually had a choice on this flight, not just “here's this vegetarian pasta” like last time. We had beef. As the Germans would say, “I could eat this.” It was pretty good. Slightly sauerbraten-ish, or similar to a meat tangine I've made in the past. No free glass of wine with dinner.

    Despite the absolute quiet on the plane and the melatonin, I'm unable to sleep, and sitting here wide awake. We're due to land in Frankfurt in a little over an hour and a half. Once there, we have a 2.2 kilometer walk to our next gate-- from one end of the airport to the other, including immigration and security. Two hours to do it if we're on time, so I hope we make it. Lufthansa, when they sold us the tickets, we're confident we could.

    And... we made it. From the next to the last gate at Terminal C, to the last gate in Terminal A, through security and immigration with one short train ride.

    Now, onto Leipzig, and here comes the plane.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Nikolaikirche

    2024年11月27日, ドイツ ⋅ ☁️ 48 °F

    We arrived in Leipzig, checked into the hotel, and went out to the Christmas Market to eat. More on that later though. We had three objectives for today: Nikolaikirche, Thomaskirche, and Goerderler Monument.

    We started with the Nikolaikirche, mainly because we had passed it already and knew where it was.

    Saint Nicholas Church, a Catholic turned Lutheran church, was originally built in 1165 as a Romanesque church. In the 1500s, it was renovated into the Gothic Hall Style it has to this day. Baroque elements were added in the 1700s, notably the tower and portal. Today, it's a shared church, in use by both Protestants and Catholics.

    One of Leipizg's many important places tied to music, JS Bach was the musical director at Nikolaikirche after his appointment to the Thomaskantor post over at St Thomas. Several of his works debuted here including Saint John Passion (BWV 245 if you're interested in listening to it) and the Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248). Yeah, I like Bach. He's one of my favorite composer, sorry.

    The church was a flash point for the Peaceful Revolution and the eventual downfall of the Communist government in East Germany. Pastor Christian Führer began holding peace prayers every Monday in the church. The prayer meetings grew in popularity, attracting members of the more vocal and open opposition to the government. In the opening months of 1989, the government, through the Stasi, attempted to end the prayer meetings: blocking streets, and arresting random attendees outside as well as inside the church.

    This only emboldened the opposition, and more people came each week. On October 7, 1989, the fortieth anniversary of the East German state, protests occurred around the city. Hundreds were beaten and arrested. Erich Honecker, the General Secretary of the Socialist Party (the one who ran the country), threatened to close the church, and announced that the counter-revolution would be ended on Monday, October 9.

    Expecting bloodshed and knowing they were risking their lives, thousands crowded into the Nikolaikirchen and other central churches that Monday. It was estimated 70,000 people massed in the center of the city. The army and police had been mobilized, expecting violence, when instead, the people just stood with candles and prayed. Low level members of the Socialist Party on the scene urged a withdraw of the tanks and troops.

    The rest, as they say, was history. The Berlin Wall fell a month later.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Leipzig

    2024年11月27日, ドイツ ⋅ ☁️ 50 °F

    The first church built here was a Romanesque structure in the 1100s. In 1217 the minnesinger (the German version of a troubadour) Heinrich von Morungen gave the church a relic of Saint Thomas which he brought back from India, upon his entrance into the Augustian Canons. The church went through many renovations. The first major change was from Romanesque to Gothic style in the 1480s with the influx of money from the silver mines of the Erzgebirge. More renovations were carried out in the 1700s in the Baroque style, however in the late 1880s these were refashioned closer to their original Gothic trappings.

    The church, like many in Saxony, became Lutheran in the course of the Reformation. In 1539 Martin Luther preached here on Pentecost. It also has strong associations with famous musical figures. JS Bach was the music director from 1723 until his death in 1750, and also taught at the school. Mozart played the church's organ in 1789, and in 1813 Richard Wagner was baptized at Thomaskirche.

    Parts of the church were destroyed in 1943. In 1950, the bones of Bach were moved from their resting place in the graveyard of Saint John's when it was demolished by the Communist government, and interred in Saint Thomas. Sulfur emitted by nearby mines and other industrial pollutants in the post war period badly damaged the exterior statuary, and the paintings inside, despite some restoration done in the early 1960s. A more effective restoration was undertaken by the World Monuments Fund with money from American Express in the early Twenty-first Century.

    There are some notable, but not well known, pieces of art in the church: a Döteber baptismal font and a crucifix by Casper Löbel, which probably hung in the church during Bach's tenure. Much of the stained glass is from the 1890s.

    Oh, apologies for Bach's upside down tomb. You couldn't go all the way to where it is.

    Posting on Goerdeler and first day Christmas markets will have to wait until tomorrow. We've been up close to thirty-four hours. It's 8:00 PM German time and I'm going to bed.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Finally, the Christmas Markets

    2024年11月28日, ドイツ ⋅ 🌬 45 °F

    Since the driving purpose of the trip was to see real German Christmas markets, we went to most of them yesterday when we arrived. Some are really small here, a few stands with food and drink, maybe some vendors, like the Finnish Market, the Sudtirol Market, etc. There's also a Fairytale Market (scary), a Medieval Market (on the small side), and the main market on the square, which was really crowded when we arrived the first time at lunch.

    So here, some pictures from the main market, including the not-attractive looking lunch which was really good. No glühwein yet. Also, pictures from the market around Nikolaikirche, which I didn't even know was there.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者
    2
    111

    Fairytale and Finnish Markets

    2024年11月28日, ドイツ ⋅ 🌬 45 °F

    The Fairytale Market has the rides for the kiddies, a giant Ferris wheel, more food and drink, shops, and scary dioramas of fairy tales the little kids really seemed to like.

    The Finnish Market has mainly food, flame cooked salmon and Glögi (Finnish mulled wine) being the specialties. I got Steve to actually eat fish and he said it wasn't bad.もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Goerdelerdenkmal

    2024年11月28日, ドイツ ⋅ 🌬 45 °F

    Another place we went to last night, it was high on the itinerary. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, the mayor of Leipzig in the early 1930s, and an active force in several attempts to remove or assassinate Hitler. He was a conservative, Lutheran, a firm nationalist, but mostly opposed the Nazi. Like others in the early 1930s, while he didn't support Hitler's rise to power, he thought he would be controllable with the right pressure. As a result, he was constantly sending memoranda, advice, et cetera to Hitler and Goring, in his roll of Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan, especially on economics.

    As mayor, he actively opposed the boycott of Jewish owned businesses, even dressing in his full regalia and interfering with SA attempts to close and disrupt shops in 1933. His opposition continued, though he was softer on some issues such as Aryanization of professions, and believed in a fair number of common Antisemitic tropes.

    He resigned as mayor in 1937. On the surface, his resignation came over the removal of a statue of Leipzig-born composer Felix Mendelssohn, but his disputes with the Nazis went far deeper, centered around their Antisemitism and insistence on rearmament and movement towards a command economy.

    Goerdeler worked abroad and in Germany from 1937 to gain support for a putsch against Hitler. He was working for a military state, or a return to monarchy, and told his foreign contacts that this could be done, if the governments of the USA, UK, and France would return what had been taken from Germany in Poland and Czechoslovakia. (This is a gross simplification, but we're time limited here, and this isn't history class...)

    He was involved in several major plots to eliminate Hitler, either through arrest or assassination, including the one most Americans known about, on July 20, 1944. He was, with many others, caught in that one. He didn't hold up well in prison, gave information in the "hope that it would overwhelm the authorities", though it just ended up with more people being arrested. Eight members of his family were arrest on Sippenhaft (blood guilt-- the crime of being related to an enemy of the regime). He was executed by hanging in Plötzensee Prison in Berlin February 2, 1945.

    The Goerderler Monument is a well surrounding by passages from his writing, at the corner of the Neues Rathaus, the new city hall. Four times a day, chimes emanate from within, and we went out to hear it last night at 5:55. A very bad video follows, and pictures we took of the sight today.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Monument to the Battle of the Nations

    2024年11月28日, ドイツ ⋅ 🌬 45 °F

    Finally caught up to today. Apologies for falling behind.

    Started off our day having breakfast in a nearby bakery served by a very non-terminator type breakfast robot. I think his picture is on the facebook page (his? her?). Then we took the tram out to the Monument to the Battle of the Nations, which marks the final defeat of Napoleon in October 1813. The battle took place outside Leipzig, and approximately 90,000 were killed.

    It's huge, very solid, with an immense amount of detail in the stonework. The weather wasn't so cooperative, but it could be worse. If you're interested in Napoleon, the last war against him, there's a museum about it, but we gave it a miss. My historical interests are mainly pre 1700s in Europe, and World War II so...    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者
    11

    Sudfriedhof

    2024年11月28日, ドイツ ⋅ 🌬 45 °F

    Yay! A great big cemetery. If you followed our trip to Bavaria, you'd know we like to visit cemeteries. This is Leipzig's biggest, and honestly we wandered into by accident because we saw the tower of the central building. I said, "That looks like a monastery, let's go look." It wasn't. It was the main building of the South Cemetery, which contains various halls, funeral rooms, and a crematorium. It didn't look like you could visit, but we didn't walk too far inside. We're not ready to get in trouble yet...

    So we wandered around the cemetery, took some pictures. We found the 1948 monument to the victims of fascism, and it brings up a lot of interesting points on how the NSDAP period was addressed in post war DDR. It reminded me of what the historian Claudia Koonz told me way back in the early 1990s, about how the DDR viewed the period so much differently than the West. I'm trying to avoid such touchy political commentary, so look at the pretty pictures.

    The inscription on the monument front and back says: "Led to death, but behold, we are living," and "the victims of fascism admonish us". I had help with that, thank you DeepL translate. Google translate-- be better.

    So look at the pictures, while I remind myself to be quiet. Oh, don't miss the picture of the squirrel!    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Neues Rathaus Leipzig

    2024年11月28日, ドイツ ⋅ 🌬 45 °F

    Formerly know as Pleissenburg Castle, the site of the 1519 Disputation between Martin Luther and Johannes Eck. At that time, Leipzig was still Catholic, and it wasn't for very long afterwards. The castle was mostly destroyed in the Thirty Years War, and was never of significant military value afterwards.

    In 1905, it was rebuilt as the New Townhall. If you remember, last night we went to the Goerdeler Monument here to listen to the chimes. Today, we visited again, hoping to go up to the tower for the views, but due to high winds and rain, it was closed. We walked around inside and took pictures instead. It also has a famous restaurant in the basement, the Ratskeller.

    There was some sort of police party going on, up in the open area on the second level, but someone (husband) told me we couldn't crash it. Sigh.

    That said, it's a nice looking building, but we didn't stay long. Note the police bus-- one career, a thousand possibilities!    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig

    2024年11月28日, ドイツ ⋅ 🌧 43 °F

    We visited the Forum for Contemporary History, which was mainly a museum about the formation of the DDR, resistance against the government, how the government sought to order society and the economy, and how it eventually lost control. Exhibits touch briefly on the NSDAP era, and the years after Reunification. Have to watch what I post, re images, but there were a lot of interesting things here.

    Included and of note: a field stone left by a small farmer whose land was collectivized, a box of consumer goods from the West, the hiking gear worn by one of the first three East German girls to escape over the border of Hungary in 1989, and a cartoon by the LA Times equating Reunification with the return of the NSDAP.

    Highly recommend.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Leipzig Hauptbahnhof

    2024年11月28日, ドイツ ⋅ 🌧 43 °F

    Train station, I know, big deal. But it is a big deal, and here's why:

    The Leipzig Hauptbahnhof is the largest train station in Europe. Seems strange it would be this one, but it is. In the late 1800s, Leipzig became a major railway junction for traffic through the Kingdom of Saxony. There were a handful of different companies running their trains out of a handful of terminals. It improved a bit as companies were consolidated, many coming under either the control of the Royal Saxon State Railways and the Prussian state railways (that's not a mistake-- the s and r aren't capitalized in the official name, German, you know...)

    Eventually, the government got involved. In this case, the local government in Leipzig, which decided there should be one passenger terminal and one only. The two companies would have to work it out. They did, and the result was this massive rail station, with two grand domed entrance halls, administration spaces, shopping and all that went with them. Oh, and platforms to board the trains, twenty-six in all. The station was completed in 1915 after nine years. The western half of the station was the Prussian side, the eastern the Saxon.

    There are also some interesting old trains on the east side of the train shed.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Last night in Leipzig

    2024年11月28日, ドイツ ⋅ ☁️ 41 °F

    Wrapping things up here. Ten o'clock German time and I'm still up. The husband is not, he's snoring happily. Tomorrow, onto Erfurt.

    A few last shots of the main Christmas Market, including a short horn performance, more food (including Kasespaetzle and buckthorn punch).

    I'll be putting up a lot of pictures on facebook at some point, hopefully soon, for now, I'm tired, and have another long day tomorrow.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者
    2

    Erfurt

    2024年11月29日, ドイツ ⋅ ☁️ 41 °F

    Today, we're off to Erfurt, where we'll spend the weekend. Erfurt is the capital of the state of Thuringia, which so happens to be the state in which my maternal grandfather lived. That's not why we chose to visit here though. Erfurt is another old city that came highly recommended by the smart volunteers on the Germany forum at trip advisor, as well as being interesting historically and aesthetically. Remember those half-timbered houses I liked so much in Franken? Well they're here, too. I was told it has an exceedingly pretty Altstadt, and it does. Of note is the Kramerbrücke, built in the 1100s, that to this day houses shops and homes on either side. When I get the time, I'll dump a lot more pictures on Facebook.

    Short history, feel free to skip if you're tired of me rambling, or you know all of this. Erfurt comes into the records in 742, when the English Benedictine, Saint Boniface established a diocese here. Another example of the English Christianizing the Germanic people, as we saw on our last trip to Austria and Bavaria. The city is on the Via Regina, that vital east-west trade route across Europe, which contributed to its wealth. Erfurt was a member of the Hanseatic League, which I tend to associate with northern and coastal Germany, but I imagine other inland trading cities/towns were in the League as well. During the Holy Roman Empire, Erfurt was under the power of the Electorate of Mainz (and yes, Mainz itself is clear across the country on the Rhine, but the HRE was that way), and had significant town rights. At some point in the early 1800s, it passed to Prussia, and then, as with most other places in Europe, it was overrun and taken by Napoleon.

    The University of Erfurt was founded in 1379, the oldest university in what today is modern day Germany. This is the university Martin Luther was attending when he decided to become a monk. He entered the Augustinian Cloister right here in town. Other intellectual luminaries associated with Erfurt: the mystic and philospher Meister Eckhart, and the sociologist Max Weber, best known by me as the author of “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” which I had to read in my historiography class back in college.

    Like Leipzig, there are intriguing (to me) musical associations here. Johann Pachelbel was the organist at the Predigerkirche from 1678-1690. Several members of the Bach family lived here, including the parents of JS Bach. The church were his parents married is still standing.

    I'm going to cut this short, giving more detail (sorry) when we actually do the sightseeing, after one last bit of information. Topf and Sons, the company that provided the crematoria to the Nazis, was located in Erfurt. You can visit the site of their headquarters, and we're going back and forth on that. We'll see.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Erfurter Dom

    2024年11月29日, ドイツ ⋅ ☁️ 41 °F

    The Cathedral of Saint Mary stands on the site of two former churches, including one established by Saint Boniface in 742. In the mid Twelfth Century it was rebuilt as a Romanesque basilica. The church's current form was reached in the Fourteenth Century, went another renovation was undertaken in Gothic style.

    The church is home to the oldest free standing cast work in Germany, a candelabra called the Erfurter Wolfram and the Maria Gloriosa, which was the world's largest free swinging bell when it was made in 1497. Today, it's the world's largest surviving free swinging Medieval bell, and is still in use. No chance to see the bell, and we might have seen the other thing. We definitely saw the relics of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary (though they call her Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia), and Saint Boniface.

    Two significant historical events occurred in the cathedral. The first, on July 26, 1184, is known as the Erfurt Latrine Disaster. Yes-- latrine disaster. King (later Emperor) Henry VI met with vassals and other area lords to try and broker an end to a feud between Landgrave Louis III of Thuringia, and Archbishop Conrad of Mainz. At some point during the meeting, the floor collapsed, sending nearly everyone in the room into the latrine beneath the church. Sixty people died, though Louis and Henry both survived.

    On April 3, 1507 Martin Luther was ordained in the cathedral.

    Today, the church is still Catholic, though Erfurt and the surrounding area by and large went Lutheran during the reformation.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者
    21

    Sankt Severi

    2024年11月29日, ドイツ ⋅ ☁️ 41 °F

    Right next door to the Cathedral of Saint Mary, is Saint Severus. The original structure dates from the Eighth Century, a monastery was founded there. In 836, the bones of Saint Severus of Ravenna were brought to the church.

    The Romanesque church was largely redone in Gothic style in the 1300s. After a fire in the city in 1472, the church was rebuilt yet again. It barely survived secularization and the reign of Napoleon, who offered it for sale so that it could be destroyed. Go figure. Bombing during World War II almost destroyed it again, and since the end of the war, it has undergone several more renovations.

    The relics of Saint Severus in an elaborate sarcophagus are the most significant item in the church. Also of interest, the Virgin Mary altar which features Mary and several other female saints    もっと詳しく

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    Erfurt Christmas Market by day

    2024年11月29日, ドイツ ⋅ ☁️ 41 °F

    Was a bit crowded, even at mid-day, but not as chaotic as the main market in Leipzig. Lots of interesting things to eat, it looks like. We had our first Thuringer Rostbratwurst. It was good, different from the ones our German butcher makes, but they come from Baden Wurttemberg so I'm thinking these are the real deal. Gluhwein as well, but it didn't come in a real cup so we'll have to get more.

    There are a handful of other markets, but one looks totally bougie/hipster. We'll see tonight, or Sunday night. Or both.    もっと詳しく

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    4
    1Bach house

    Eisenach

    2024年11月30日, ドイツ ⋅ ⛅ 32 °F

    Capital of Thuringia in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, and the castle overlooking the city, the Wartburg, has played an important role in German history. Ruled by the Ludowingians and the Wettins in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, as their fortunes changed, so too did the town.

    Eisenach played a pivotal role in the Reformation. Luther attended school here (1498-1501) in preparation for university. He came back when under Imperial ban (more about this later). The town accepted the tenets of the Reformation in 1528, after being damaged in the Peasants' War in 1525.

    Other important historical ties: it was the birthplace of JS Bach (1685), and home at one point or another to Pachelbel, JC Bach, and Telemann. The yellow house in one of the pictures is the house in which Bach was born.B

    From the 1860s until 1938, Eisenach had a large and thriving Jewish community, and it was here that the Nazis founded the Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life, run by the Reich Church. BMW had a factor here during the war, producing aircraft engines with both forced and free labor. After the war, the plant was socialized and renamed EMW, producing the Wartburg, sold as a luxury vehicle in the DDR.

    Eisenach was one of the western-most cities in the DDR, which interfered with development and investment. The city suffered population loss, and overall deterioration of housing stock. The government demolished large swathes of historic homes to build Soviet-style apartment blocks to correct the problem. There are still a lot of very big, very impressive Jugendstil mansions, despite this. It's a very pretty town.

    After reunification, Eisenach saw an increase in tourism, mainly due to the Wartburg being named a UNESCO World Heritage site.

    Personal connection: Eisenach is the city listed on my grandfather's papers as the place of departure when he entered the US. His place of birth on his naturalization papers is actually listed as Berteroda, which is a small suburb/ village right outside of the city. Didn't manage to get out there, but if we ever come back, we will.    もっと詳しく

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    1

    Georgenkirche and Luther

    2024年11月30日, ドイツ ⋅ ⛅ 36 °F

    The Georgenkirche was built by Ludwig III, of the Ludovigian Dynasty when they ruled the area. The church is associated with several important historical people and events, beginning with Elizabeth of Thuringia (aka Saint Elizabeth of Hungary) who married here in 1222.

    Martin Luther sang in the choir here as a student. He returned later, including to preach in the church before his mysterious kidnapping on May 2, 1521, after his refusal to return to the discipline of the Catholic Church.

    JS Bach was also baptized here.

    There's a carved crucifixion piece from the Voss Workshop of Nürnberg, which is you read our Bavarian trip, you would have heard of him already. Also, behind the altar are the tombstones of some of the members of the Ludovigian family. When the Communists took over, they were supposed to be removed and destroyed, but were taken into safekeeping.

    We stopped by the Lutherhaus, but didn't visit, just stopped into the guesthouse. We had a long day ahead of us at Wartburg Castle, beginning with a walk uphill to reach it.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者
    5

    Wartburg

    2024年11月30日, ドイツ ⋅ ⛅ 37 °F

    So here's the big history, and some introductory pictures... I took so many. I do have to say, while the Medieval Christmas market was nice, I wish we had come on a regular day and saw the castle without the extras and the crowds. Also unfortunately, we found a great view from a distance to take a side shot, but the sun was behind the castle so the pictures are meh.

    We didn't come here for family history, we came for the Wartburg. It's a huge place. Like the Hohenfestung in Salzburg and the Kaiserburg in Nuremberg that we visited on our last trip, the Wartburg just overwhelms you and dominates the area. So that's worth a visit, not to mention that it was originally begun in 1067 (just one year after William the Conqueror invaded England-- be still my Medieval loving heart!), and parts of it have survived since then. Like all of these structures, it's burned down, been besieged, fired on and et cetera, but it's still here.

    The castle has been an important court site of the Wettin family (like the Wittelsbachs down in Bavaria and those darn Hohenzollerns we're going to hear a lot about the Wettins on this trip). It played a supporting role in one of my favorite to teach episodes of Medieval history- the Investiture Controversy between HRE Heinrich IV and Pope Gregory VII, again-- heart palpitations...

    Under the Ludowingian dynasty, the court was considered one of the most cultured in the German Reich. Two of the most influential poets/ Minnesängers were part of Hermann I's retinue: Wolfram von Eschenbach (who wrote parts of Parzival in the castle) and Walter von der Vogelweide. It was also the site of the perhaps fictional Sängerkrieg, or Minstrels' War (1206 or 1207), which was the inspiration for Wagner's Tannhäuser, which I listened to in preparation for the visit. You see how far I go for everyone? Opera!

    There were other notable figures linked to the castle. Saint Elizabeth of Hungary was raised here, then married to the Ludwig IV.

    The castle passed to the Electors of Saxony, and it's with them we get our next big historical adventure: the residence of Junker Jorg. Frederick the Wise, the Elector of Saxony and great patron of education and the Catholic Church, “kidnapped”, then hid Martin Luther on his way back from the Diet of Worms. Luther lived in the castle for close to a year, during which he translated the New Testament from Greek into German. In order to do this, he took a handful of the many different dialects and standardized them so that his translation would be accessible to more people. Okay, more of the few people who could actually read.

    A lot of other things happened, of course. Wars, that Napoleon guy, and a prominent part in the Revolution of 1848 and the road to German unification. The Wartburg is so significant to German history, even the Communists recognized its place, and put significant resources in to reconstruction in the 1950s, and again in the '60s.

    A few last notes. Another noted visitor was Johann Wolfgang Göthe. He spent a few weeks at the castle making drawings. The castle once housed an extensive treasury of arms, armor, relics, artworks, and the sorts of blingy things one finds in a treasury. When the Red Army withdrew after WWII, most of the treasure “withdrew” with them, never to be seen again. A few items were returning in the 1960s, and the government of Germany has been trying to get the rest back from the new management.

    Good luck with that.

    So all of this history-- a total Medieval overload-- a hike up the hills to get to the place, and add to all that, a Medieval Christmas market. I was in historian hog heaven.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者
    21

    The Festsaal

    2024年11月30日, ドイツ ⋅ ☀️ 41 °F

    Maybe I'm easy to impress, but I loved this room. It was difficult for me to pick only twenty photos. Lots of weird shots of decorative details, but this room... There was a woman doing a demonstration/concert of Medieval-Early Modern music, and if the hall wasn't set up for shows, I'd have probably taken a lot more photos in there.

    This was the main hall. I'm thinking it was probably where the Sängerkrieg took place, if it was a real thing. If you've ever been to Crazy Ludwig's Neuschwannstein in Bavaria, the hall there is a copy of this one.

    The performer was really good, unfortunately all those chairs and people were in the way. One video. Poorly shot. Badly edited. Okay, chopped off to fit the under one minute limit. I'll post the whole badly shot thing somewhere at some point.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者
    2

    Museum and Luther's Room

    2024年11月30日, ドイツ ⋅ ☀️ 43 °F

    Just a few more, then back to Eisenach.

    After I finally got dragged out of the Festsaal... No, they were going to do a puppet show next and I don't like puppets, so I left voluntarily. Next, we went to the museum, then down the long, narrow, darkish corridor to the room where Georg the Strong hid Martin Luther, and where Luther began his translation of the New Testament into German.

    Not much bling in the collection (remember, that was all stolen by the Soviets), but some nice historical things. The last three pictures are Luther's room, not the fancy one earlier on.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者
    2

    Wartburg Christmas Market

    2024年11月30日, ドイツ ⋅ 🌙 39 °F

    Finally, right? Isn't this trip supposed to be about Christmas Markets?
    Well, not entirely. But here it is. It was a nice market. Some interesting food choices and vendors. Some cos-players, some pretty good, some just honestly weirdos, and I'm saying this as someone who used to be a weirdo myself. But in a good way.もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Augustinerkloster

    2024年12月1日, ドイツ ⋅ ☀️ 27 °F

    Building began in 1277, and continued into 1300s.
    Includes the chapter house, cloister, tower, priory and St Katherine's chapel. In 1482 two Woad houses were built: one for storage of grain, the other to process woad-- the blue dye that helped to make Erfurt's riches. The monks traded in woad to fund the monastery.

    Had a notable school, which was started in the early 1300s.
    Martin Luther entered the monastery in 1505, was ordained in 1507, and was at the monastery intermittently until sept 1511.

    He stopped at the monastery and preached outside of it on his way tot he Diet of Worms (and little child Lutheran me was so disappointed to learn that no, the “evil Catholics” didn't make him eat worms) in 1521

    During the beginning of the reformation, the prior supporter Luther, and distributed Luther's writings. In 1522 many of the monks followed Prior Johannes Lang in leaving the Order and becoming Evangelical. When the last monk died, the town council took over the property.

    It was used as a school, then part of it reverted back to the Evangelical church. It also housed an orphanage, and in the 1800s, a school for orphaned and neglected children.

    The property suffered considerable damage during WW2, leading to the deaths of 267 people who were sheltering there. The Fourteenth Century stained glass windows and many of the books survived, having been removed and stored elsewhere. Today, you can visit the cell Luther lived in after his return from Rome in 1511, and there's a picture of that. Also, the grave of the founder of the monastery, which is where novices would prostrate themselves when they took their vows-- got that too.    もっと詳しく

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  • Wolpertinger WanderingsMostly Saxon Christmas Markets旅行者

    Augustiner Brewery, Erfurt

    2024年12月1日, ドイツ ⋅ ☀️ 39 °F

    Lunch time. Tired of Christmas Market food, which is not good because we have a lot of time ahead of us. Had my German goose, so that's another objective off my list. It was good. And Augustiner dunker, good as always. Venison schnitzel was good, but goose was better. I never had it before, but apparently it's the quintessential German Christmas meal.もっと詳しく

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