In the Green Heart of Germany: The Very Best of Thuringia

It’s impossible to fully appreciate a visit to Germany without some understanding of the country’s long and colorful history. Not even the most remote village is untouched by the rich legacy of German literature, science, philosophy and architecture. It just so happens that our trip, up this point, has been based in one such remote corner. The state of Thuringia, unlike Bavaria and Saxony, means nothing to to the average American. Its capital city, Erfurt, evokes none of the imagery inspired by other East German cities like Berlin (the once divided capital), Dresden (setting of  Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five”) or Leipzig.

And yet Thuringia, popularly known as the Green Heart of Germany, is home to some of Germany’s most bright-shining cultural treasures. Before the unification of assorted principalities and fiefdoms under Otto Bismarck in 1871, Gotha was the center of a rich and powerful political entity. Its iconic castle defines the city’s skyline to this day, and is clearly visible from the living room window of my in-laws’ upper-story apartment.

For the last two weeks we have been encamped in a community garden just on the outskirts of Gotha, in a loose affiliation of private gardens where city residents rent land and build summer cabins, where they toil the soil and relax on the weekends. The cultural highlights here seem to revolve around the beer closet, the chain saw and the barbecue. But just a short jaunt to the west is the city of Eisenach, where J.S.Bach was born in 1685, in a house which is now a museum honoring the preeminent baroque composer.

In the other direction, about 45 minutes east, sits the city of Weimar, famous seat of the interwar Weimar Republic, but more celebrated as the home of Goethe and Schiller. Germany’s greatest literary fathers, something akin to our Thoreau and Emerson, are largely overlooked in the states, but personify the grand traditions of Romanticism and the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) movement in German drama and poetry. Weimar also houses the archives of one of the country’s (and the world’s) most widely read and broadly misinterpreted philosophers, Friederich Nietzsche.

Few Germans changed the course of history as much as the 16th century theologian and church reformer, Martin Luther, and his footprints can be found everywhere in Thuringia. The Wartburg fortress overlooking Eisenach served as his hideout when he was on the Pope’s most wanted list after posting his notorious 95 Theses, in protest of the Catholic church, in the year 1517. The city of Erfurt, as well as many of the surrounding villages, have immortalized the preeminent Protestant with numerous statues and eponymous churches.

But Luther was far from this region’s first or last great theologian and social critic. The medieval mystic and unorthodox friar Meister Eckhart has enjoyed something of a revival in recent decades for his esoteric and deeply inward looking interpretations of the Bible. If you’re not familiar with Eckhart, you can think of him as a kind of 13th century Timothy Leary, with all the incense but without the acid tests. Eckhart is believed to have been born just a few kilometers from where we are staying, in a village called Tambach, and was known to be very active in the church of Erfurt. Lesser known yet highly influential in 20th century liberal christian circles, the Swiss scholar and theologian Karl Barth delivered one of his most famous speeches in the same town of Tambach in 1919, and a monument has been erected there in commemoration.

The list of even more obscure poets, philosophers and church leaders could go on for pages, and we could spend months visiting their memorials and birthplaces here in rustic Thuringia, but the fact is, when we’re traveling with a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old, the domineering cathedrals and culturally enriching museums must play second or third fiddle to the captivating playgrounds and mesmerizing construction sites.

For more entertaining stories and handy travel tips, check out some of the following highlights.

• The bus came by and I got on
• Philosophizing in Weimar
• The Esoteric Tourist in Search of Meister Eckhart
• The Esoteric Tourist takes Toulouse
• Midnight Run: Retrieving lost passposts
• 4 Cryptic Myths in Barcelona
• 6 Day trips from Barcelona
• 7 Essential outings in Cerdanya