The Wartburg - The most German of castles and one of the most beautiful too. It has a thousand-year history that saw saints and sinners, counts and tourists. Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German here - a good, solid, honest ten weeks of work. Goethe loved the view and inspired the restoration of the castle, which was done using the original plans rather than the historicism style popular during the 19th century.

Quick Tips:

Eisenach suffered more than any other Thuringia town from the devastation of the Second World War. Its old town is not particularly attractive, but a few odd buildings are worth seeing. Most of these are concentrated on the Markt and on the roads leading from here to the Luther and Bach Museums.

Also of note is the Nikolaitor (the Nicholas Gate) - the only surviving gate from the original town defenses. Inside the gate is an excellent gourmet wine restaurant that opens only for dinner.

In between the Nikolaitor and the Bachhaus, at Johannisplatz 9 is the Schmales Haus (Narrow House). This building, erected around 1750, is 8.5m high but only 2.05m wide and is thus considered the narrowest half-timber house in Germany.

In the hilly residential suburbs to the south of the town, near the Wartburg, are several lovely large Gründerzeit villas. After visiting the Wartburg, cross the main road, turn right immediately, and follow the meandering Fritz Koch Street up the hill for marvelous views of the Wartburg and surrounding forest.

Best Way To Get Around:

Sights in the old town are within easy walking distance. In the off-season, parking is easy to find. From the old town to the top of the hill where the Wartburg is located is at least half an hour’s walk. The hill is steep.

Driving up to the Wartburg is easiest. Even then, it is still a good climb from the parking lot to the actual entrance of the castle. When the parking lot at the castle is full, the ones at the main road at the bottom of the hill must be used. Then walk or use bus 10 to the top. The same bus runs from the main station via the old town. In summer, children weighing less than 60 kilograms can also be transported by donkeys. (These donkeys originally carried water to the castle.)

Eisenach is a stop on the ICE fast trains from Frankfurt to Dresden (via Fulda, Erfurt, Weimar, and Leipzig). It is also on the Autobahn 4, allowing fast transportation by car to the same cities.

Staying in a Steigenberger hotel would usually be our first choice. This German luxury hotel chain runs impeccably managed establishments of great comfort, without being over the top or garish. In addition, they often have Internet specials, making them compete price-wise on a slow night with much lesser hotels. However, none of my German hotel guides warmed up to the Steigenberger in Eisenach - all list it as a five-star hotel, very recently refurbished, but apparently nothing special. All raved about the Best Western Kaiserhof, which I fortunately did not pick, as seeing its location at the most busy T-junction, even double glazing wouldn’t be able to filter out all the noise.

Instead, we decided to go for something different from the inner city centre hotels we usually select for their convenience to walk to all the sights and restaurants. Villa Anna came highly recommended by several guidebooks and the website looked great as well - even after applying my usual virtual-reality-to-real-world formula (looks of the site times two divided by five and a half to get to the truth).

Villa Anna is located in a large white house halfway up a hill in a quiet residential neighborhood to the south of Eisenach. It is surrounded by beautiful, large, turn-of-the-nineteenth-century houses, and the hill offers views of the opposite hills with the Wartburg and students’ memorial.

The reception is up a flight of outside stairs from the street. Here is also an outside seating area with views of the town. Our room was very large with modern furnishings. We were happy to see the requested baby bed already inside the room. The large beds were comfortable, but the color TV rather small, as is the case in many European hotels. The large bathroom was all tiled in white, with shiny stainless-steel fixtures. The shower had a strong stream of hot water. We had a great view from our room across the valley towards the students’ memorial.

Villa Anna seems to cater mainly to business travelers, who seem to appreciate its fair price, quiet location, and good service. However, they clearly know how to deal with families too. At breakfast, a baby chair and child cutlery were already provided at the table set aside for us. The cold buffet was a decent spread, and eggs can be ordered. Other meals are not served, although a small room-service menu is available.

Villa Anna is to the south of Eisenach with turnoff just opposite that of the Wartburg. It would probably be possible to walk to the Bachhaus in less than 15 minutes, although down a very steep hill.

Café-Restaurant Alt Eisenach is located in Karlstraße, the pedestrian shopping street leading from Karlsplatz and the Nikolaitor to the main Market Square. During our visit, there was some construction and repaving work being done to the street, but fortunately, the area directly in front of the restaurant was already completed. There were a few tables in the street, but given the noise and dust, indoors seemed more attractive.

Inside, the restaurant is furnished in a Viennese café style, with several divisions making space for comfortable conversation corners. Leather-covered benches, a lot of wood, and not too much light made for a congenial atmosphere. A bar is available deeper into the premises. The restaurant was still fairly empty, and we picked a seat at the window, where we could observe the street traffic passing by.

The menu is German with several local Thuringian dishes on offer, ranging from the standard Bratwurst to more elaborate grilled meats and Klößen, potato dumplings, which are popular in many areas of Germany. Best avoided, in my opinion.

Service was prompt and friendly. We ordered drinks and requested that tagliatelle be brought for the toddler while we further studied the menus. Menus? Yes, for some reason, they have two menus on each table - one a colorful foldout menu and the other a more traditional menu in mock leather cover. As far as I could see, both contained the same dishes, but in a slightly different order. The restaurant is open from 9am to midnight, so all meals and snacks in between are catered for.

The drinks soon arrived, as well as the pasta - the latter not too hot, as a child portion should be. We ordered a Thuringian lentil soup, which was thick and rich, and laden with Thuringian ham; a toasted ham and cheese; and a turkey schnitzel. The latter was juicy and tender, accompanied by Bratkartoffeln and a large salad. The beer, Eisenach Wartburg Pils, went down smoothly, and a second was soon required.

The food was hearty, as one would expect from an establishment with history in Thuringia. Service was prompt and friendly, and the total bill came to just over € 20.

Café Konditorei Brüheim

The square in front of the Bach House is lined with cafés and restaurants - inevitably called Am Bachhaus, B-A-C-H Restaurant or similar - catering for tourists’ needs. In the mood for coffee and cake, we headed for Café Konditorei Brüheim at the far end of the square, with a view of the Bach statue but able to survive in this competitive environment without abusing the great man’s name.

There are several tables outside the shop, but we dropped in first to see which cakes were available that particular day. Spotting the large "Non-Smoking" signs at the entrance to the inside area, we decided to stay. The selection of cakes and pastries is large, with all available as take-out or eat-in - the latter having a small surcharge.

The personnel were friendly and patient. The customer in front of us - an old lady shopping for delicacies for a tea party, where she clearly planned to impress - changed her mind twice and then, after paying, remembered she needed cream as well. That gave us ample time to make up our minds and to realize that this establishment does not exist solely to serve the Bachhaus visitors.

We settled for coffee, tea, and two Plundern, pastries not unlike Danish. I also had a Kongohappen, a small chocolate cake with thin layers of cake and cream and some fruit jam. The size and delicacy of it reminded me of the small, beautiful cakes I had to endure for so many years in Japan - although the price of 90 cent here being a far cry from the five to seven times more I would have expected to pay back in Tokyo.

Only two other tables were occupied at this hour, and we selected a corner one with views over the square, used as a parking lot, towards the Bach statue and house. The décor was modern and the café-style chairs comfortable. We also discovered several lovely children’s books, which kept the child busy throughout our break. Our order arrived at our table within minutes, and all tasted as good as expected, the coffee strong - after three days in the former East Germany, I gave up on cappuccino, as it always tasted very weak - and the pastries crispy and loaded with fruit. The Kongohappen not only looked good, it also tasted great, with none of the artificial tastelessness that often invades its Japanese counterparts. The bill was brought immediately upon request - a remarkably low € 4.90 - reminding us that service in restaurants in the former East Germany is so much better than the terrible service we often have to endure in the average West German cafés.

In Germany, it is not often that Goethe, Germany’s most lauded literary figure, is overshadowed by anyone. He was a prolific traveler and kept meticulous journals in addition to copious amounts of detailed letters to friends. Every town that he visited and complimented is keen to remind the present visitor of Goethe’s impressions. Goethe visited Eisenach often and is credited with inspiring the reconstruction of the Wartburg in the 19th century. However, in Eisenach, he is overshadowed not once, but twice. First, by Martin Luther, and secondly, by none other than Johann Sebastian Bach, who was born in Eisenach.

Unsurprisingly, in Eisenach has a Bach Museum, Bach statues, Bach streets, and a frequent use of the great man’s name in vain by commercial establishments of all kinds.

The Bachhaus is a large, yellow-painted house at the top end of Frauenplatz to the left of a large statue of Bach. The museum often passes itself off as the birth house of Bach, but it is not. Depending on whose story you want to believe, it was either mistakenly believed to be the birth house and the real one was already demolished by the time the error was discovered, or the error was made on purpose so that the real one could be demolished and the land used for more profitable commercial purposes.

Fact is: this is not the real birth house, but it gets worse. There really is not much to see inside the house. Most exhibits consist of large posters with information on Bach’s life and work. In contrast to, for example, the excellent Beethoven house in Bonn, there is not much that was actually used by Bach himself. Granted, Bach lived long before Beethoven, he was not as famous in his own time and shortly after as Beethoven was, and it is infinitely more difficult to collect a few of Bach’s pipe organs than it is to collect and exhibit Beethoven’s hearing pipes, but still, I found the museum itself rather disappointing.

More interesting was the lovely garden - but once again, bear in mind that it actually has no relation to anything Bach - and the special exhibition space, located at the back of the garden in a modern, mainly glass building. The running exhibition was on the church organs Bach fine-tuned in the region - he was already a well-respected master during his late teens.

A highlight of the visit should be a short 20-minute program of Bach music - a few played live on period instruments, but most tunes rendered more contemporarily via CD. We just missed a performance, and having heard such music often before, decided not to wait for the next performance. Even if we had, I still doubt whether I would really recommend this museum. We wanted to listen to some Bach driving back to Frankfurt, but alas, to add insult to injury, the only classical music CD in the car was Beethoven; ClassicalFM played Mozart.

„Wart Berg, du sollst mir ein Burg werden!"

"Wait, hill, thou should become my fortress!"

According to legend, Louis the Jumper saw a hill in the thick Thuringian forest, uttered the above-quoted words, and decided to construct a castle at the very spot. An irritation was that he did not actually own the land, but that was a surmountable problem. He carted some soil from his own estate, deposited it on the hill, and thereby allowed his servants to swear with a clear conscience, when the real owner of the land took the case to the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of German States, that they had dug into their master’s own ground to build the castle. (Unfortunately, facts interfere with a good story: Louis actually owned the land and the name Wartburg predates the fortress.)

The Wartburg is one of Germany’s most famous and most beautiful castles. The main palace is a three-story Romanesque building, considered by many the most important secular Romanesque structure in Germany. Attached to it is a long white fortified wall with half-timber bastions and constructions. It has been described as the most German of castles. Some claim that while the American and Japanese tourists swarm to the Neuschwanstein follyin Bavaria, Germans generally prefer the "true," historically significant Wartburg. (This is, of course, insincere. Germans also love the castle that inspired Disney.)

The Wartburg is located outside the town of Eisenach on a high hill with marvelous views of the Thuringian Forest. This commanding position is the main reason for its existence. It served as a mighty fortress and power base of the Ludowinger family from the construction of the castle by Louis in 1067 until the end of the family line in 1253, after which it never played a significant military role. The most famous resident was Martin Luther, who stayed here in 1521-22.

Changing military technology reduced the importance of the fortress, and the counts increasingly found living in Eisenach itself more comfortable and convenient. The Wartburg fell into disrepair until the end of the 18th century. On the suggestion of Goethe, who was more impressed by the nature and the marvelous views than by the history or architecture, attempts were made to maintain and restore the castle. A full restoration was carried out in the 19th century, fortunately following original plans rather than the fanciful historicism that was popular during this period. The Nazis adored it, replaced the golden Christian cross with the swastika, and used the castle for all kinds of ceremonial functions. At the end of the war, the management hoisted a white flag, a treasonous act punishable by death, in order to ensure that the castle would sustain no damage from the advancing American army. During the Cold War, the Wartburg was a favored destination for East German tourists, and since 1990, the West Germans and other foreign tourists have been swamping the castle too.

Wartburg 2 - Visiting the Wartburg

Visiting the Wartburg is not a leisurely stroll in the park - it is always crowded and the stroll is up steep slopes. During summer months, it is popular with families; during the off-season, it is overrun by school groups. Arriving at opening time to take the first tour is essential.

Walking up the hill to the Wartburg will probably take around half an hour. Driving up takes a few minutes, but if the parking lot is full, you have to park at the bottom of the hill and walk or take the bus up. In summer, donkeys are available for children weighing less than 30 kilograms. From the parking lot and bus stop, it is still a good 15-minute schlep up a steep road, or several minutes of straight stair-climbing, to get to the entrance of the castle. The truly infirm may be driven to the top, but bear in mind that in Germany, infirm is not equated with old or lazy. The castle itself is completely inaccessible to wheelchairs and strollers.

Once past the first gate tower, you enter in a sense the most beautiful part of the Wartburg. Neither the oldest part of the castle nor the most important, the 15th- and 16th-century half-timber constructions here absolutely look the part. The courtyard takes you back to the Middle Ages, Saxony of old, Martin Luther, and, of course, the public WCs and souvenir shop.

For several centuries, Elizabeth, and not Martin Luther, was the most talked-about resident. She was a Hungarian princess who came to the Wartburg aged four and betrothed to the son of the Thuringian count. In 1221, at 14, she had reached marriageable age. By this time, the Hungarian political connection was no longer significant, but as Count Louis IV had actually fallen in love with her, he married her anyway. Elizabeth annoyed her in-laws by doing good deeds for the poor. She continued to feed them despite being forbidden to do so. On one occasion, with a basket of bread and en route to the poor, she ran into her in-laws, who forced her to reveal the contents of her basket. When the basket was opened, the bread had turned into roses. Her husband died during a crusade in 1227, and his brother, Heinrich Raspe IV, worked her out of the Wartburg in less than a year. She moved to Marburg, where she opened a hospital for the poor and continued her good works. In 1231, she died and was declared a saint a mere four years later. Heinrich Raspe lived to experience that. In 1247, he died childless, and with him, the Ludowinger line. His lands were divided, and a minute piece, later expanded into the mighty state of Hesse, was awarded to the son of the daughter of Elizabeth and Louis IV.

The Wartburg ignored the norms of the time: the Ludowinger family considered themselves important and strong enough to built a palace with three floors - something up to then considered a symbol of the imperial palaces. In addition, the staircases are a good 130 centimeters wide, in strong contrast to the traditionally narrow, easily defendable staircases that allowed space for only a single knight.

We move from the cellars via the knights’ hall to the dining room with its oak roof beams dating from 1158. The Elizabeth room, decorated with an early-20th-century mosaic of a million gilded glass pieces, is dedicated to the life of St Elizabeth.

Another popular stop is the Sängersaal (Singer’s Hall). According to legend, a major competition was staged here in 1206 and 1207 between the Minnesänger (troubadours). A 2.5m-by-5m fresco, painted in 1855, retells the saga of the six troubadours who competed for glory and death. To make it really exciting, the loser would lose his life. Five singers praised Thuringian Count Hermann I, but Heinrich von Ofterdingen clearly had a death wish and praised the Viennese Court! Interference by the countess saw his life spared and a new competition scheduled. A year later: same scene, same personalities, same rules, same outcome! However, all ends well when it is realized that the quality of the art and not the political message is the main thing. All sang well and all survived. It is not clear where truth stops and legend starts, but it is a fact that the count at the time was a great supporter of the arts and that the most important troubadours of the period did visit the Wartburg. Richard Wagner told all about it in his opera Tannhäuser und die Sängerkrieg auf dem Wartburg.

From here, it is on to the Landgrafenzimmer (Count’s Room), where wall and roof paintings retell most of the Wartburg legends. The final stop is in the festival hall, a richly decorated 19th-century interpretation of what a medieval knights’ hall should have looked like. It may be historically incorrect, but it is magnificently done. It has excellent acoustics, making it a popular venue for concerts. King Ludwig the Mad from Bavaria was so impressed with it that he had a smaller version copied in his fairy-tale Castle Neuschwanstein (derided above).

Wartburg 4 - The Museum & Lutherstube

The museum is surprisingly interesting. It is an eclectic collection of items donated during the 19th century by other castles, residences, churches, and monasteries in the region. Many paintings show the Wartburg as interpreted by artists through the ages. Religious art is a major focus and includes several paintings of St Elizabeth as well as Lucas Cranach paintings of the Luther family members.

A large piece of furniture is also the most impressive work of art: the Dürer closet. This beautiful piece, with richly carved doors, was made around 1510 by Albrecht Dürer in Nuremberg. The museum also has a large collection of cutlery, timepieces, and porcelain.

After the museum follows a visit to the Lutherstube (Luther Room). In 1521, at the Diet of Worms, Martin Luther refused to recant his beliefs and was declared an outlaw. Although not sharing Luther’s beliefs, Prince Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony had Luther captured and brought to safety. From May 4, 1521 until March 1, 1522, Martin Luther stayed at the Wartburg disguised as the knight Junker Jörg. During his stay, he did an incredible amount of writing, including, in a period of only ten weeks, translating the New Testament from Greek into German. In the process, he created the first German work that could be understood by speakers of all the numerous dialects of German spoken in the empire. He thus gets much of the credit for creating modern German (and also most of the blame for the continued use of umlauts (ä, ö, ü) and the capitalization of all German nouns).

Wherever he went, Martin Luther left legends and tourist destinations behind. The Wartburg is, of course, no exception. The first pilgrims were already coming during the 16th century, with the oldest graffiti dating back to 1580. In the process, these visitors carved his wooden desk away, splinter by splinter. At the end of the 19th century, virtually nothing of it was left and a new desk was placed in his room. Nowadays, the room is roped off, but you can still peek in and take in all of the small, wood-paneled room.

Legends there are aplenty. The most famous involved an ink stain on the wood-paneled wall. Luther said you have to fight the devil with ink, meaning, of course, with the written word. However, legend had it that the devil visited Luther during the night and that Luther threw an inkpot at him, leaving said mark on his hosts’ wall behind. As with his desk, pilgrims scratched the ink mark from the wall, necessitating the authorities to continuously re-stain the woodwork. This practice was halted in 1894.

Emerging from the castle after almost two hours, one is not first struck by the wonderful bright sunlight, but rather by the throngs in the first courtyard. The contrast between the quiet of two hours earlier and the mix of schoolyard and marketplace could not be bigger. Do come early!