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Medieval Blitz

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Quick stop in London, then off to the land of castles and beer!

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Medieval Blitz

March 22, 2008

After we went to Buchenwald, we headed off to the town of Eisenach. Here we found my favorite restaurant so far, called Das total verrückt Kartoffelhaus. It was SO cool inside, fake trees, antiques everywhere, and the food was delicious! Anyway, the reason we went to the town was to see the old bits of town and Wartburg Castle. Seriously, the next time I come to Germany, I’m totally coming back to this place, and staying in the attached hotel. Anyway, this castle was amazing, and though it had a lot of reconstruction and revamping, it was very true to its medieval form. Additionally, this is where Martin Luther spent time translating the bible from Greek to German and writing 14 theological works. This is also the place where St.

Elizabeth von Thüringen lived when she was married to Ludwig IV and performed many good services for the poor people in the town. I was amazed at the preservation of the original construction of the castle, which dates back to the year 1067. There was even an internal medieval staircase, which is very rare to find, considering mostly additional floors were accessed by external, temporary wooden staircases on the outside of the building. The medieval Knights hall and the Hall of Minstrels in particular were represented quite well. Although much of the plaster on the walls and frescos are much more modern, the wood and structure itself still date back to the original construction of the castle. It was also exciting to see the hall of minstrels, where Von Eschenbach wrote and competed with other writers of the time. The chapel also had some gems, an original medieval crucifix and the remains of a wall painting of 6 of the apostles on the left wall above the pulpit. Luther’s study was also fun to see, though it was surely quite cold! Sadly, I wasn’t able to tour all of the grounds or the original tower construction because it was past 5:00 and it had started snowing. Ah well, next time perhaps! It was my second favorite part of the trip, right after the Tower of London. Tomorrow we go for Thüringer forest, Dreichen, and Paulinzelle…then we end up in Cologne.

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Wartburg Castle

Amazing Castle on a Mountain

To me, student discounts at this place are A-MA-ZING (just make sure you've got your card). Okay, just so you know, if you want to go to this place, you have to drive up a mountain, then park, then walk up more of the mountain...it's not for the faint hearted, but let me tell you, if my mom can do it, so can you! (98 year olds in walkers on the other hand need not apply). You can stay at the hotel attached to the castle and they drive you up to the top though...so that's always and option. Anyway, I was really impressed and excited about this place. It's a really cool castle, built with a fantastic view on the top of a mountain. Luther stayed here and wrote numerous theological tracts during his stay, you can even visit his study room. The castle is also very well preserved, and has medieval and renaissance aspects to it. They have a preserved interior medieval staircase...which is virtually unheard of and they have most of the original chambers still intact and following their medieval model. The *only* downside to this place is that a lot of it is reconstructed. Usually this bothers me, but in the case of this castle, it really didn't...and the only explanation I have for that is, that they weren't pretending it was original. For instance, the room of St. Elizabeth has an AMAZING mosaic depicting her life story, that was made in the 1990s. The rooms throughout the castle have frescoes on the wall done in the late 1800s...but again, they were well done and depicted the history of the castle and kept the rooms to their purpose, and thus were still quite impressive. Perhaps most exciting for me was the hall of minstrels, where it has been recorded, some of the greatest German medieval writers and poets performed before Ludwig and his successors.