Germany Guide
Thuringia
Culturally as much as geographically Thuringia (Thüringen) is the heartland of Germany – a bucolic state where slow travel rules and no city is over 200,000 people. The surprise, then, is that if a competition were held to decide the nation's cultural big-hitter, flyweight Thuringia would be there in the finals. This is the legendary resting-place of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, Germany's King Arthur, the font of Martin Luther's Reformation, the former stomping-ground of Bach and Lucas Cranach, and the state that inspired Schiller and Wagner. More than anyone else it is the state of Goethe, Germany's cultural colossus whose tread is seen everywhere.
Nowhere expresses this better than Weimar, a Thuringia-in-microcosm that lobbed the intellectual atom-bomb of the German Enlightenment, whose shockwaves were felt throughout Europe. Most cities would struggle to make such an impact, let alone a small, courtly town. Adjacent Jena has maintained its academic tradition and the student nightlife that goes with it, while Gotha and especially Eisenach have a cultural weight far above their modest size. The state capital is Erfurt, Luther's university city which marries historic looks and university dynamism.
The Thuringian Forest is the state's rural core, whose sleepy villages are tucked into the folds of an upland blessed by good walking and cycling trails. You can lose a happy week crisscrossing the area by bike on labelled routes or journey through its heart on the well-marked 168km Rennsteig, which traverses it. The state's many green landscapes also include the Saale Valley at the eastern fringe of the forest region, and the Kyffhäuser uplands to the north.
Two wheels aside, a car is a bonus for touring the Thuringian Forest region, where bus transport is sketchy. Elsewhere two Deutsche Bahn tickets simplify travelling by train. The Thüringen-Ticket provides up to five people one-day's unlimited weekday travel for €29; and the Hopper-Ticket (€6) covers return journeys within a fifty-mile radius from any destination in Thuringia or Saxony. The latter is included when you buy the longer versions of regional discount card the Thüringen Card (one day €13, three days €33, six days €53) from tourist offices state-wide.
Highlights
1 Erfurt The underrated state capital is as cultured as it is charming, its head count of students bringing energy – and bars – to a historic streetscape.
2 Weimar An erudite town steeped in three centuries of cultural prowess and whose former residents read like a who's who of German arts.
3 Gotha Spend the morning in a multifaceted museum, and the afternoon pottering into the Thuringian Forest on a historic tram.
4 Eisenach A provincial backwater that just happens to be home to the Wartburg, as potent an icon of German identity as you could wish for where Luther hid and whose gloriously over-the-top halls inspired Wagner.
5 Touring small-town Thuringia With your own transport there are cosy villages to find, castles to explore and pocket-sized ducal capitals to stroll in, in a region that offers slow travel at its best.
Erfurt
"Erfurt is a honeypot. A town would have to stand here even if the city had just been razed to the ground." So mused Martin Luther, the most famous resident of Thuringia's state capital. While the father of the Reformation could also have acclaimed it as a fine little city bursting with character, ever the pragmatist, he got to the nub, as it is its location at the heart of Germany – and Europe – that was the making of ERFURT. While profits from woad helped fill coffers, its drip-feeds of finance were trade routes east– west from Paris to Russian city Novgorod, and north– south from the Baltic to Italy.
With the merchants came progressive ideas and liberal attitudes. Luther's free thinking was nurtured at Erfurt's prestigious university, renowned as a cradle of humanism. Centuries later, in 1970, open-minded Erfurt hosted ice-breaker Ostpolitik talks between West and East Germany. Though the largest city in Thuringia Erfurt is pocket-sized, its easygoing Altstadt a traditional German townscape of the sort largely obliterated elsewhere by bombs and developers, and with a dynamo university that adds a sheen of modern style and passable nightlife. Put the two together and what's not to like? Few honeypots taste sweeter.
Erfurt has few set pieces; it's as an ensemble that the city impresses, with any street in the centre worth exploring, especially as you can walk from one side to the other in about twenty minutes. The axes of Erfurt's central Altstadt are the Episcopal powerbase Domplatz, Fischmarkt, the civic heart, and Anger, a broad plaza at the head of the shopping streets. North of the centre in the studenty Andreasviertel and around the Augustinerkloster are especially photogenic quarters. Drop the map and explore by instinct.