I woke up bright and early Saturday morning for my trip to Weimar, my first solo sightseeing excursion in Germany. The morning was gray and chilly as per usual, but it was lovely nonetheless. The day got off to a great start in one way... as I headed into town in the direction of the Bahnhof (zu fuß... mein Fahhrad ist leider noch nicht ganz repariert...) I saw a guy heading in the opposite direction. Nobody I'd ever seen before here in town, but I definitely noticed him from a ways away thanks to a certain jauntiness in his step and the fact that he was whistling merrily. I must've been staring and probably grinning as well, because when we approached one another he smiled at me and tossed a happy "Morgen!" my way. I replied in kind, and three steps past him I distinctly heard a "hübsch!" directed to my general vicinity. Definitely a nice way to start the day...
I managed to get my train ticket from the Automat about 30 seconds after the regional train I wanted was scheduled to leave the station; since it was 20 minutes late that morning, however, I only had to wait about 19 for its eventual arrival. Direct, and actually cheaper and quicker than the "fast" trains with multiple connections. Very nice. I read the whole way and thumbed through my guidebook familiarising myself with useful info so as not to look like a total tourist the minute I stepped off the train. It didn't really work, and I still had to get the guide out again once I landed to orient myself to the nearest tourism office where maps and tickets were to be had, but it was a good effort.
I got a day ticket for the bus (largely unneccesary; I only used it twice and it would've been ever-so-slightly cheaper to get two one-way passes) and headed outside to catch the next ride into town. Maybe it was the light, but Weimar appeared to me at first as a giant confection. There is so much pastel in that town! Entire buildings in robin's egg blue, pale cream, and baby pink, give the vista a kind of Eastery appeal and hinted at spring around the corner.
My first stop was one of the churches that may or may not have counted relatives of mine as congregants, the Stadtkirche St. Peter und Paul. The composite here sadly marginalizes the statue on the far right in favor of cars and strangers in the foreground, but the church sits on Herderplatz, named after one Johann Herder (whom the statue memorializes: linguist, philosopher, and pastor at the turn of the 19th century.)
Inside the church is a giant altar painted by Lucus Cranach, as well as a tryptich of Martin Luther as monk, master, and "Junker Jörg," his secret identity when the whole 95-theses thing hit the fan. And for whatever reason I love organ lofts:
Pastels everywhere! Shortly after taking this picture I realized that the pictograms I had at first interpreted as "no flash photography" were actually more along the lines of "no photography of any kind," so I slunk out feeling rather felonious and without speaking to anyone... not that offices were open on weekends anyway...
From the church I headed east to the city archives and the old palace, now an art museum. I checked out the collection, mostly more Cranach and contemporaries, particularly religious art, though the top floor has an exhibit on the "Weimar school" of impressionism. I found a nice cafe/gallery/restaurant across the street for lunch... pasta with lentils and duck, very yummy.
After lunch I decided I needed to find this "Wuenscher pharmacy" that Google told me about and get a picture:
Of course it was also closed on a Saturday. I wandered through the Marktplatz and Theaterplatz, main plazas of town, and then got a little lost but eventually found my way to the Goethehaus, where the much-adored poet lived for for 50 years and hoarded (ahem, "collected") some 50,000 pieces of art and 18,000 geological samples:
I also wanted to find the Reformhaus Wünscher, the other interesting result of Googling "Weimar Wuenscher." A Reformhaus is a kind of healthy living center, often selling organic food, homeopathic remedies, vitamins, and the like. This one doesn't seem to have a food section and looked more like a Drogerie, which just goes to show that being a pharmacist really is genetic in my family.
Back on the Marktplatz, I took a photo of the statue of Goethe and his buddy Schiller:
And then went to the Bauhaus museum. Bauhaus is a school of design/architecture that originated in Weimar at the turn of the 20th century, and an early progenitor of what would later become known as "modernism." I thought of Mike when I saw the awesome lamps and end tables...
By the time I got through the Museum it was starting to get late, but I had at least one more sight on my list, and then I saw this on the way:
Anybody catching the reference?? Anyone at all? Sophomore year, Chamber Singers. The Mendelssohn. Lerche-damn-song, I remember calling it at the time...
Mmmm... techno remix! "SAY WHAT?"
And then I found the other church on my list, the Jakobskirche. It was already closed by the time I arrived, but I wandered through the Kirchhof to see if any names looked familiar. Hey, Cranach! But I don't think he's family...
I wanted one more picture, so I set out for the Schillerhaus. I think this is it:
Then I found a nice place for dinner (more pasta, but this time something a little spicy with pepper and tomato, and a glass of a locally-produced white wine) and caught a bus back to the Bahnhof to catch my train home. I thought about finding a hostel and staying the night, but after a long day of walking out in the cold (it's still hovering around freezing here) and with the realization that even more stuff is closed on Sundays than Saturdays, I really just wanted to head back to Göttingen. That's not to say I wouldn't visit again, though! I didn't get to see the inside of the Schiller house, nor much of the Park an der Ilm, the Friedhof where Goethe and Schiller are buried, the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial which is about 20 minutes outside of town by bus... Maybe we'll make time for some of this stuff when my family visits, or Mike will want to take a weekend trip when he's here (and I'm sure he'd get a kick out of Bauhaus!)
In addition to seeing more of Germany than Göttingen, the purpose of this trip was also to see if I can handle the idea of travelling alone to begin with... and I think it went pretty well. Although I think it would still be better to have a travel buddy for my explorations, I'm not as worried about making arrangements, getting lost, or generally taking care of myself after this trip... Plus, it's pretty nice not to have to plan or pace my itinerary for anyone but myself. Maybe this can become a regular thing... This coming weekend I hope to see Leipzig and Jen Porto's opera performance, though the details are still hazy. After that, who knows! I'm open to suggestions!
I managed to get my train ticket from the Automat about 30 seconds after the regional train I wanted was scheduled to leave the station; since it was 20 minutes late that morning, however, I only had to wait about 19 for its eventual arrival. Direct, and actually cheaper and quicker than the "fast" trains with multiple connections. Very nice. I read the whole way and thumbed through my guidebook familiarising myself with useful info so as not to look like a total tourist the minute I stepped off the train. It didn't really work, and I still had to get the guide out again once I landed to orient myself to the nearest tourism office where maps and tickets were to be had, but it was a good effort.
I got a day ticket for the bus (largely unneccesary; I only used it twice and it would've been ever-so-slightly cheaper to get two one-way passes) and headed outside to catch the next ride into town. Maybe it was the light, but Weimar appeared to me at first as a giant confection. There is so much pastel in that town! Entire buildings in robin's egg blue, pale cream, and baby pink, give the vista a kind of Eastery appeal and hinted at spring around the corner.
My first stop was one of the churches that may or may not have counted relatives of mine as congregants, the Stadtkirche St. Peter und Paul. The composite here sadly marginalizes the statue on the far right in favor of cars and strangers in the foreground, but the church sits on Herderplatz, named after one Johann Herder (whom the statue memorializes: linguist, philosopher, and pastor at the turn of the 19th century.)
From the church I headed east to the city archives and the old palace, now an art museum. I checked out the collection, mostly more Cranach and contemporaries, particularly religious art, though the top floor has an exhibit on the "Weimar school" of impressionism. I found a nice cafe/gallery/restaurant across the street for lunch... pasta with lentils and duck, very yummy.
After lunch I decided I needed to find this "Wuenscher pharmacy" that Google told me about and get a picture:
Du nimmst mich von hier,
Ich singe mit dir,
Wir steigen durch Wolken zur Sonne!
Mmmm... techno remix! "SAY WHAT?"
And then I found the other church on my list, the Jakobskirche. It was already closed by the time I arrived, but I wandered through the Kirchhof to see if any names looked familiar. Hey, Cranach! But I don't think he's family...
In addition to seeing more of Germany than Göttingen, the purpose of this trip was also to see if I can handle the idea of travelling alone to begin with... and I think it went pretty well. Although I think it would still be better to have a travel buddy for my explorations, I'm not as worried about making arrangements, getting lost, or generally taking care of myself after this trip... Plus, it's pretty nice not to have to plan or pace my itinerary for anyone but myself. Maybe this can become a regular thing... This coming weekend I hope to see Leipzig and Jen Porto's opera performance, though the details are still hazy. After that, who knows! I'm open to suggestions!
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