Tom`s travels: Eisenach (14/05/2022)

On another nice sunny May weekend, Ania and I decided to head southwest of Berlin and with a fast train reach the town of Eisenach in less than three hours. Once we reached the destination, we exited the train station and headed on to visit the old town, first passing under the 12th-century romanesque city gate, the Nikolaitor, the only surviving of five former city gates. Next to it was the church of St Nicholas, also from the 12th century but heavily refurbished during the 19th century, it was though unfortunately closed. From there we continued on through the city center, passing by the triangular-shaped Karlsplatz, and then stopped in front of a very peculiar house. The Schmales Haus is a half-timbered house, about 250 years old, that is one of the narrowest and smallest inhabited houses in Germany. It has a width of only 2.05m and a floor area of 20 m² and reaches a height of 8.50 m. At that point, after a short walk, we reached the central square, the Markt, where the church of St George is located. Originally dating to the 12th century, its current appearance is due to refurbishments that took place during the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the tower which was added at the beginning of the 20th century. Martin Luther preached in it during the Reformation, making it thus one of the oldest protestant churches, and the german composer Johann Sebastian Bach was baptized inside in 1685. In front of the church, in the center of the square, stood St George's Fountain, an elegant monument from 1549. On the other side of the square, to the north, stood the Stadtschloß, a nice baroque palace once the residence of the Dukes of Saxony-Eisenach and later the residence of the grand dukes of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach. Leaving then the main square, we walked by what is known as the Lutherhaus, one of the oldest surviving half-timbered houses in Thuringia, and where Martin Luther lived as a guest of the Cotta family during his schooldays in Eisenach from 1498 to 1501. It is nowadays a museum, but we decided to skip the visit. A little further on we reached another famous house, the Bachhaus, a half-timbered house around 550 years old, which was mistakenly identified as Bach's birth house in the middle of the 19th century. Nowadays this also holds a museum dedicated to the composer. From there, we then started an uphill climb, first through the suburbs of the city, and then deep into the forest that surrounds Eisenach. At one point, after a bit of walking, we finally reached the Wartburg Castle, the city's main landmark and a Unesco world heritage site. Situated at 411m above sea level, above a precipice, this famous castle dates back to the 11th century. Its current aspect is the result of the refurbishments which took place in the following centuries, particularly those during the 19th century when a new wave of medieval and gothic nostalgia, known as Romanticism, brought it back to a medieval appearance. After paying for the entry ticket, we entered the castle's premises, which were already filled with many visitors. We started out with a visit to the Palas, the oldest section originally built in a Romanesque style between 1157 and 1170. There were some rooms, such as the Rittersaal and the Speisesaal, reconstructed in their original romanesque styles, with medieval objects and remains of the romanesque decorations of the castle such as column capitals, murals, etc. Another interesting room was the Elisabeth-Kemenate fitted with neo-Byzantine mosaics showing the life of St. Elisabeth. From that room, we headed upstairs and saw two more interesting rooms, the Sängersaal, with 19th-century representations of the Sängerkrieg, or minstrel contest, also known as the Wartburgkrieg, the Wartburg contest, which was a contest among minstrels that took place in 1207 at Wartburg. On the upper and last floor, we then entered the spacious Festsaal, occupied by the 40-meter-long ballroom, which was placed on the original structure after the Wartburg residence had become the Ludovingian residence. After passing some other nice minor rooms, we then also visited the Lutherstube, where Martin Luther stayed when he was a guest in the castle. Once we had visited the main part of the complex, we then exited back into the main courtyard and climbed the southern tower, which stands right on the edge of the precipice and which granted a beautiful view of the surrounding forested landscape. Finally, after visiting the whole complex we decided to leave the premises and head out into the forest, taking a path that led us slowly downhill. After a bit of walking, we then reached the Drachenschlucht, or Dragon's Gorge, a ravine deep inside the Thuringian Forest, south of Eisenach. A nice hiking trail goes right through the whole 3km section of the gorge, which we decided to walk all along. The narrow path, which at its highest spot is just 61cm in width, was sided by beautiful rocky walls such as those seen in the Saxon Switzerland National Park, albeit at a smaller scale. For the most part, a small rivulet, whose rushing water sound we could easily hear, ran right below the path which was covered with iron grates. Once we reached the end of the gorge, we then came out to a locality known as Hohe Sonne, where a small grill restaurant was set. Here we had the lunch we had packed and brought from home and enjoyed a bit of rest. After the break, we got back on our feet and followed another path, which, with a loop would take us back to Eisenbach. We hiked uphill once again until we reached a great viewpoint from where we could admire the Wartburg castle in the distance. Here was also the Großer Drachenstein, a 450m high point where a really large, tall and old oak sat surrounded by some benches. It was really nice and peaceful to sit in the shade of it and admire the beautiful view around. Once back on the trail, we started descending until we reached a shorter and wider, but nonetheless nice, gorge the Landgrafenschlucht. We walked through it until we then reached a road, which not long after led us back into the city. Here we walked once again through the pretty old town and then decided to look for a place for dinner before our journey back to Berlin. We stopped at a place called Kartoffelhaus-Eisenach, where, as the name might suggest, they made potatoes in all different ways and styles. I had a dish with potato balls and red cabbage and meatloaf while Ania had a potato salad. After dinner, it was time for us to head to the train station from where we then took our ride back home.