Yesterday we went and saw Wartburg castle in Eisenach, which is about a 2 hour train ride (on the slow trains) from Jena. It's the first time I've been on a train since I got to Germany. We got a group ticket which didn't allow us to ride the high speed trains, which we didn't know till the lady checking our ticket informed us while we were riding the high speed train. Luckily, she let us stay and didn't fine us. It probably helped that we were getting off at the first stop. We made sure to get on a slow train on the way back. It was really warm and the trains didn't have air conditioners so we opened the windows but it was still pretty stuffy.
Wartburg castle is old and has a storied past. Construction on the castle began around 1061 AD by Ludwig the Leaper (he jumped from a castle tower into a river to escape from prison). He found the sight for the castle as he was hunting. Unfortunately, the land was outside of his jurisdiction so he brought soil from his own land, spread it on the ground, and built his castle on it. That way when the emporer asked he could swear that he built it on his own land.
It was also the site where Saint Elizabeth lived with several rooms devoted to her life. She came to Wartburg castle at the age of 4 years old. In one of the mosaics it shows her engagement to the duke which was put into effect by placing the two toddlers in the same cradle. She was later canonized a saint because of her work healing the sick. One of the miracles she performed was the rose miracle. She was taking some bread to a sick man even though in that time it was illegal to steal bread from the castle (even though she was married to the duke). As she was traveling she came across the duke who asked her what she had underneath her cloak. She claimed that the bread was roses, said a quick prayer, and alas! when she pulled out the bread it had turned into roses.
This is also the location of Sängerkrieg (minstrel contest) that was immortalized in Richard Wagner's opera, "Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg."
The castle is most famous for it's role in Martin Luther's life. When Martin Luther started the protestant reformation he was brought before the pope at the Diet of Worms and ordered to recant his beliefs. He refused and the pope declared him an outlaw, which in those days meant that anybody could kill him without being punished. Frederick the Wise, elector of saxony, took Martin Luther and protected him in Wartburg castle. While there, Luther translated the new testament from greek into german. When he left the castle, people asked him what he had been doing, to which he replied, "fighting the devil with ink." People took him literally and a legend became well known that one night as luther was working, the devil appeared to him on the wall. Luther threw his inkpot at the devil, making him disappear, and leaving an inkstain on the wall. People came from miles around to see the inkstain and the obliging stewards of the castle created an inkstain on the wall. Pilgrims would remove pieces of the wall while the stewards kept replacing it.
On the top floor of the castle is a large singer's hall (bigger than neuschwanstein) in which they still hold concerts and operas. In fact, the eisenach high school uses it for their graduation ceremonies.
Fun fact I just learned on Wikipedia: when the russians occupied east germany after world war 2 they carried away all of the art and artifacts from wartburg castle. Most of it is still missing.
On our way back to the train station, we stopped by the city church which just happened to be the church that Johann Sebastian Bach was baptized in. On our way home we stopped in Weimar which is the most visited city in this state (Thuringia; Eisenach is number 2, probably because of wartburg castle). However, Weimar was kind of lame. Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lived there and it was the capitol of the Weimar Republic (the first democratic government in Germany). For us the town just seemed small and overpriced (to tour goethe's house would have cost 10 euro, wartburg was only 5 euro). I do want to go back to Weimar in order to see Buchenwald (a concentration camp, and later a russian gulag during occupation). We didn't have enough time to see it yesterday.
We got back to jena in time to watch the uefa champions league final at the american themed Cheers sports bar. It's modeled after the old tv show (you know, "sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and their always glad you came....). It was an exciting game, unfortunately I spilled my beer (alcohol free of course) when barcelona scored their first goal so I was wet for the rest of the game.
Anyways, that's it for now. I didn't bring my pictures to the institute so I'll have to upload those tomorrow. Tschüss
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