Our 34th Anniversary! Our alarm went off at 6:15, which is way too early for a Sunday morning. However, my husband had to shower, so it is, what it is. At least, the view was pretty.
Our bags were out at 7:15 and we went to breakfast. Breakfast this morning had some of the things we were used to, but a few new items, too. There were several really nice pastries. I'm not into honey, but I was impressed to see a large honeycomb dripping there for you to get the freshest honey possible. I also had this muffin-looking thing that had egg and bacon in it and reminded me of the breakfast in Butte, Montana in June.
You might notice the lovely two-tone rose in the last picture. It has a nice background. Yesterday on the bus, the 87-year-old gentleman D., whose daughter ate with us last night, was asking about the border of the old East Germany. Any German teacher worth her salt knows where that is, so I went up and drew a rough border on his outline map of the trip. I knew that wasn't a great representation. So, when we got to the hotel last night and got onto the wi-fi, I googled to find maps of the two Germanys and present-day unified Germany. I snapped the photos on my phone and looked to show him at dinner last night. Since he didn't come to dinner, I showed them to his daughter and she took pictures of them to show him. When D. saw me this morning, he was so joyful and really appreciative. He told me, that when his tray with dinner arrived last night, it had this rose on it. He knew he had to give it to me to go with the rose my husband bought me for our anniversary today. He had wrapped it in a damp napkin and stuck it in a Ziploc over night. When I thanked him, I mentioned that I'd had 3 red roses in bouquet 34 years ago and he and his daughter were sure the 3rd rose would come to me. How sweet! When I got upstairs, I broke the stem of my red rose to make it shorter and put both of them in the water tube. On the bus, they sat rather nicely in the mesh in front of us.
We were on the bus at 8:20 and it was a rather chilly 18 degrees Celsius, which is 64.4 F, much lower than we get at home this time of year. When we left at 8:33, it was only 3 minutes late. We were at the front of the bus now and had a good view of the road. We saw lots of wind turbines today. Germany is into renewables. We'd seen some solar yesterday, along with turbines.
Brane, the tour guide, really likes to talk. He can go on and on about Germany, its history, and the Germans. He does this even when he recognizes that most people are asleep. I try to stay awake, but I cannot do that for long riding in a car, let alone a bus. Before I knew it, we were in Eisleben, with Brane and Charlie, the bus driver, trying to figure out where the the guide from tour 803A had told them to go. This would not be the first nor the last time they had difficulties. At 10, they had us get out of the bus only to decide that it was too far to walk and we should all get back on the bus. At least I got a nice shot of the flowers there, as well as a nice whiff of rose. Unfortunately, store bought roses have no rose scent, as it has been bred out in favor of longevity.
As we continued our drive through the empty town-sometimes on the same street twice- I noticed painted cows waving. Berlin has bears. Munich has lions. Orlando has lizards. Eisleben has cows. When we got off again at 10:15, I started to photograph them.
We still had a decent walk, some of it uphill. The houses/ shops of the town are not of great interest, but the exterior of their town hall is attractive. Of course, since he was born here
and died here, Luther has a statue in front of the town hall.
We headed for the church that is just uphill from the town hall, St. Andreas. It was closed for a service, which stands to reason. Luckily, the Sterbehaus, where Luther died is just across the street from the church. Since 803A was starting at the Geburtshaus, birthplace, we, 803, would start here.
There was a bit of time before the tour started at about 10:45 to run to the restroom. I missed the beginning of it and rushed through a couple of rooms of the exhibit to find my husband. He told me that I would find the signs in the previous rooms to be of interest, so I went back. Truth be told, there were a lot of signs to read in this place. I made the decision to take a quick scan of each, decide if it was important and then photograph it for later reading. As a result, I have a lot to read. But, he was right, they are of interest to me. Since this is where he died, they have an exhibit on death and life thereafter. His beliefs about this were quite a bit different from Catholicism.
Recently, I had learned something disquieting about Luther. I was impressed, that this exhibit did not ignore it, nor did it sugarcoat it.
I found it interesting that the heart attack he blamed on the Jews, he did not bother to tell his wife about. This seems to be contrary to the closeness they supposedly enjoyed.
We finally got through all the reading (there were some books and things on display), and got to the area he'd been in. Or had he?
Evidently, they didn't really want to make a shrine to him when he died. Maybe, they thought that was too Catholic. As it was, they had people peeling off pieces of wood from stuff he had had, when they did set up displays. So here, there is room set up like it was when his coffin was there. Another room is set up like his bedroom. I really liked this washstand. I am particularly intrigued by how water got up to that spigot.
So, his wife was obviously back in Wittenberg, when he died. We know from seeing his grave in the church there, that she is not buried with him, either. Death really did separate them. Farther on in the exhibit, we learned that he wrote a relatively modern will and it had to be approved by the Elector. Rather modern of the Elector to approve it, too.
As we finished up, I got some postcards at the shop, of course. We then went back to St. Andreaskirche, because this is where Luther delivered his last sermon. I was surprised to see that this church had the seashell symbol for the Camino de Santiago, which I thought ran only in France and Spain. Research later showed routes through many European countries. In Germany, it is called the Jakobuspilgerweg, because Jakob is the German version of James. (Santiago derives from the Hebrew Jacob, and means Saint James.)
Brane told us about the church through our headphones.The church no longer had all of the art that would have been there when it was Catholic, but the altarpiece still depicted saints and Mary, as did the pulpit.
When we went down the street again, I saw this nice manhole cover. The cities most associated with Luther have put "Lutherstadt" (Luther's city) in front of their names, by the way.
There were hanging baskets on several lampposts.
When we saw this sign, we had to laugh, because we knew you'd never see it in America. Too graphic, I suppose.
After a fifteen minute walk, with clouds moving in and the air still cool, we reached the birthplace. Here a modern museum had been attached to the old house. A lot of stairs in this place!
Here's something interesting that I learned here. We'd already heard that through his translation of the Bible, Luther more or less created modern German out of the dialects that then existed. Evidently, he created his name, too.
Being into miniatures, I was intrigued by the mining and smelting models. Eisleben is in an iron ore region and Luther's father became a master smelter after his birth. I'd been at a mining museum in Montana in June and knew how dangerous it was with relatively modern techniques. I couldn't imagine doing it before the steam engine.
Once again, we were not seeing Luther's house. Who would have thought to preserve things before he became famous?
I kept learning of Reformers, whom I'd never heard of before.
We'd toured through the exhibits at our own pace, albeit with a time we had to be done at the next stop in town. I bought postcards before my husband and I walked up the street to arrive at the St. Petri-Pauli Kirche, where Luther had been baptized, at 12:25. It's exterior belies the modernity in the church proper. The baptismal pool with the baptismal blessing was cool. I got a set of 5 postcards plus 1 special one before Brane gathered us about 12:40 to walk to the bus.
We had to wait for Charlie, where he'd dropped us off. There was a small restaurant that was just opening up for the day, but it was the only one we'd seen. For a town with such major Luther attractions, you'd think they'd have restaurants open to accommodate the tourists. I understood shops being closed, but I hadn't even seen touristy ones.
It was cloudier, when we got on the bus at 12:52 and Brane told us, that we would have to go out to the highway to find a restaurant that was open. We passed this odd sign before getting on the Autobahn and stopping at the Rohnetal rest area at 1:15. The sign was an interesting example of "Gerlish", as one of my students used to call it.
What a mob! My husband stood in line, while I scoped things out. I grabbed a 1 liter bottle of Coke Zero, as it was cheaper than 2 smaller bottles. I also picked up a Marzipan Rittersport. I helped him order 2 panini and a Brezel, before he went off to find us seats. I waited for them to heat up the panini, which turned out to be not too bad. After lunch, we went to the restroom and had to pay 0,50 each. However, we each got a 0,50 voucher back and the toilet seats spun around under a cleaning arm. So, free show! I took the vouchers to get 1 Euro off a 2,79 Joghurt Rittersport, because I was not going to waste that money.
We were back on the bus right on time at 2 and we headed off 5 minutes later. As we drove along, we saw lots of agriculture and wind turbines.
When we arrived in Erfurt, we drove straight to the Augustiner Kloster, where Luther had become a monk. When we got off the bus at 3:16, it was breezy and chilly. We organized outside of the church for a few minutes before heading inside. Through our whispers, Brane told us to notice the window with parrots and lions, as this was the symbol of St. Augustine.
The monks are long gone and the windows are really the only sign of Catholicism left. There is a very large modern building attached to the church, called Haus der Versöhnung- House of Reconciliation. There are some lovely flowers outside, as well as an apple tree. The latter is no doubt due to the Luther quote, that if he knew the world was ending tomorrow, he'd plant an apple tree today.
By 3:45, we were back in the bus and headed for the Radisson blu in town. We arrived at 3:53 and were assigned room 1003. Brane told everyone to meet at 5:30 to go see the merchants' bridge. I told him that we would not be joining them, because we were trying to get to Mass at 6. To my surprise, he actually remembered my telling him yesterday.
We were quite surprised by how dark the hall was. Later, someone from the tour described it as looking like it was built during East German times. The room was small and reminded me of a dorm room. There just wasn't much room to even put the suitcases. The height of German efficiency was in the small bathroom, where the door to the shower doubled as a door to the toilet room!
When our luggage arrived, we discovered that the zipper on my suitcase was separating at the bottom starting corner. Good grief! Are these things going to make it through the whole trip?
Months ago, I'd recognized that today would be a Sunday. It's important to me to attend Sunday Mass, in spite of our traveler's dispensation. Plus, I liked the symmetry of getting married at a Mass 34 years ago and going to Mass together today. I'd been very excited, when I realized that the Cathedral would be having a 6 pm Mass today and that this was a day that dinner was not included in our itinerary.
We left the hotel at 5:20 for what Google Maps called a 15 minute walk. This would give us a little sight-seeing time along the way. I found Erfurt charming. The merchant's bridge with the shops was really cool. We were walking along another bridge, taking pictures of the neat bridge to our right, when we realized that that was the one we wanted. So, we back-tracked to be able to go over it, which gave us pictures on and off the bridge.
In the window of one closed shop, I was very excited to see some miniature wooden rooms like ones that I have at home. They are open until 6 on Mondays and I was determined to go tomorrow to get one.
Not long after the bridge, we came upon the Fischmarkt and the Erfurt Rathaus. What an attractive building!
Across the Fischmarkt, my husband saw a street that he thought would be a shortcut. I soon realized it was not and took us back to follow the Google map I'd brought with me from home. Soon, we were at the Domplatz looking across to the Cathedral on the left and St. Severus on the right. I will admit, that the Harry Potter fan in me wished that it was St. Severus with the evening Mass.
Due to a theater production, a large stage had been set up on the long set of steps up to the churches and we were blocked by the audience seating section, as well. It was getting late and we had to make a quick decision as to which direction to go. My husband chose left. The hillside next to us stayed steep as we hurried along and we finally found steps leading up. I don't know which hated me more, my knees or my lungs. At least the latter were helped by a drink of water from one of our bottles, when we got to the top.
The cathedral's real name is Hohe Domkirche St. Marien zu Erfurt and it serves 8, 696 Catholics. The church is 1200 years old and it is where Luther was ordained. We had a few minutes to admire the door and the interior before Mass.
On our way up the steps to the pews at the high altar, I noticed missals and grabbed one. The church helpfully posted the hymns in black numbers at the front and I soon realized that the numbers in red after some of them were denoting verses. A lot of the prayers/songs were done in Latin, but the German translation was underneath. I realized that while our "consubstantiation" directly comes from the Latin, German does not use anything like that word. The Our Father in German came back to me mostly. The sound in the church was a bit difficult, but I could hear enough to recognize the Gospel story of the Transfiguration.
Unlike at home, going up for communion is a bit of a free-for-all. People just get up and get in line. We received only the host, whereas at home we received both the host and the cup. When I was back in my seat, I was surprised to see B., a woman from our tour group, going up to communion. I'd thought I was the only Catholic on the tour.
After Mass, I found her in the lower section of the church. She walks with a cane and M., the daughter of 87-year-old D., had helped her get to church. We took a few minutes to look around and take photos, before they kicked everyone out to lock up at 7:10.
Outside, we decided to go down the way the ladies had come up, because the left side had a ramp. When we got back down to the Domplatz, we had a nice view of the buildings around it. Goodness, they looked nice!
As we walked along, we discussed possible food for M. to take back to D. We finally came upon a pizza place with salads and I told them some key phrases for what they wanted to order and we took our leave of them.
My husband had found a restaurant in the Rick Steves book I'd given him for Christmas called Zum Güldenen Rade and we were standing in front of it at 7:32. They feature Thüringen food, so we decided to give it a try.
We walked through the empty restaurant to the beer garden in the back. A table for two under a tree looked like it had chairs on fairly stable footing, so we sat down. A waitress delivered large menus in no time. Knowing how the Germans operate, I emphasized that we had to choose our drinks first. My husband picked an Original Köstritzer Schwarzbier, 0,5 liter for 4,40 Euros. I oped for a Silvaner (Thüringer Weingut Zahn), 0,5 liter for 13 Euros, because I was thirsty.
Wanting to try as much as possible, we once again chose two dishes to split. My husband chose the Thüringen Teller, which was a sampler anyway, for 14,90. I went for the Sauerbraten "Fahner Höh'n" for 13,90, in order to see what their version of sour beef and dumplings was like. The dumpling was very different from what I am used to. For one thing, it was huge. It was good, nonetheless. We really loved our choices.
As we ate, it was very pleasant out there and it got cool enough, that we pulled our jackets on. It was a great ambience. We felt certain, we were the only Americans in the place, as we heard no English. In fact, a family with two children under 10 sat at a table near us as we finished our food.
I really wanted to try a local dessert, so, when she cleared our plates, I told the waitress we wanted a little something sweet. In German, of course. She brought the dessert menu and we couldn't resist the idea of Heiße Himbeeren -hot raspberries- to split. It was only 5, 50 Euros. What a beautiful presentation, with a bowl of vanilla ice cream with unsweetened whipped cream on top that has been dusted with cocoa and then the bowl of hot raspberries! And it was delicious!
The bill came to 51,70, which we rounded up to 52 Euros, which is not bad for an anniversary dinner that tasted so good. When we left at 9:26, it was now dark. As we came into the Fischmarkt, we had a lovely view of the full moon.
There were still people out in cafes, as we made our way to the hotel. When we got to our room at 9:50, I immediately went to the window to check out the view. Not bad!
We were rather frustrated to notice how flimsy the curtains were. These were not going to do a good job keeping out the morning sun!
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