Weimar in October 2012

Remember? I started the first blog of my Weimar quadrology, telling you about Elisabeth's and my recent visit to this cultural highlight, but then I was carried away digging into my past Weimar experience. That happened in my second blog about Weimar, too. I shall no longer go back in history but move forward to the present in a third attempt.

We took an early train at Freiburg but then suffered a one-hour delay. With our train being behind schedule, we missed our connection to Erfurt in Fulda. A one-hour delay on the Deutsche Bahn is not a big problem, for during daytime, direct train connections in Germany are served every hour. So you just wait for the next train, although seat reservations are lost. We filled the wait at Fulda's train station with a forced coffee and arrived in Weimar around 3 p.m.

Henry van der Velde advertising Weimar's onion market.

Instead of star architect Walter Gropius and femme fatale Alma Mahler-Gropius-Werfel, this time the founder of the Grand-Ducal School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar, the predecessor of the Bauhaus, Henry van der Velde, greeted us from the balcony of the Elephant Hotel.

View unto Weimar's marketplace from our room. In the background, the Herderkirche.

HE showed us the way to a souvenir shop. 

During an afternoon walk through the streets of Weimar, we passed the National Theater.

The well-known Goethe-Schiller monument in front of the Weimar National Theater was modified.
Thomas Mann, Goethe's lifelong venerator, stands in for Friedrich Schiller. 

However, we visited the Schiller- and not the Thomas-Mann-Haus:

  

Entrance to Schiller's house

Photos were not allowed, but I took one of the Loi du 25 Août 1792, l'an quatrième de la Liberté, signed by the great Danton himself, making le sieur Gilles, publiciste Allemand, a citizen of revolutionary France.

Schiller made a citizen of revolutionary France.

Le membre proposing the publiciste Allemand may have read Schiller's Die Räuber (The Robbers) but got his name completely wrong. Note, "called-up-late" Schiller is in the company of well-known temporaries like Thomas Payne (Thomas Paine, Anglo-American political activist), Joachim-Henry Campe (Joachim Heinrich Campe, German linguist), N. Pestalozzi (Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss pedagogue), Georges Washington (George Washington, First President of the United States), Jean Hamilton (John Hamilton, Congressman from Pennsylvania), N. Maddisson (James Madison, Fourth President of the United States) and H. Klopstock (Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet).

Elisabeth and I closed the day by having dinner at the Elephantenkeller. The round table from 1990 was still in place, but this time, it was empty. I chose a delicious Kohlroulade (stuffed cabbage leaf) from the menu and a Pilsner beer from nearby Apolda.

Delicious stuffed cabbage leaf

The following morning, a guide showed us around Weimar. We saw Goethe's summer house (Gartenhaus) from a distance.

Goethe's summer house from a distance.

For the afternoon, we had reserved a visitor's slot for the Goethehaus and the adjacent Goethe National Museum, where an exposition of artifacts documents the genius's curriculum vitae.

In the evening, we had dinner at Weimar's Ratskeller, where I had a Rindsroulade (beef olive) that I drowned in and downed with the usual Köstritzer Schwarzbier.

Rindsroulade mit Thüringer Klößen (Thuringian dumplings)

On Saturday morning, the Herder church was open to visitors.

The Herder church in October 2012, a building site.

Herder, in front of "his" church, initially called Stadtkirche.

November 1989: Prayers for peace not only in Leipzig: We are the people!

In- and outside the church were building sites. The Lutheran Church is preparing its historic places for the demi-millennium of the Reformation in 1517.

The famous altarpiece apotheosizing the Reformation was started by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1552, one year before his death. His son, Lucas Cranach the Younger, finished it in 1555.
The original painting was covered because of the building activities inside the church.
 I took this photo of a photo print on canvas displayed for the benefit of the visitors.
On the right, you recognize Martin Luther and left to him, the painter Lucas Cranach.
 John the Steadfast, who introduced the Reformation in Thuringia, and his wife sit on the other side.

Passing Weimars castle ...

The castle's medieval tower is crowned by a Baroque helmet.

... we took a stroll through the park at the Ilm River toward Goethe's Gartenhaus. He had lived there from 1776 until 1782, when he moved into his townhouse at the Frauenplan.

Goethe's garden, where He grew his vegetables. 

Picking up a Thüringer Bratwurst on our way, we climbed to the Nietzsche Archive in the early afternoon.

The archive was empty, so it was not worth the entrance fee except for the building constructed in Art Nouveau. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the walk to Weimar's old cemetery with Goethe's and Schiller's crypts. Recently, a DNA analysis revealed that Schiller's skull is not his.

Many people still consider Ernst von Wildenbruch's citation engraved into the monument:
Ich kämpfte nicht um anzugreifen, sondern um zu verteidigen (I did not fight to attack but to defend)
as proof that Germany was struck by the surrounding countries in 1914.
 The problem is that von Wildenbruch had already died in 1909. 

Later, on our way back to the center, Big Goethe was watching us from a banner:

 

Lebensfluten, Tatensturm (Floods of life, storms of action)

We had a beer at a small place opposite the Goethehaus, watching carriages drive by. For a moment, forget those iron poles and the cars and live your dreams.

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