Erfurt is a city at the crossroads of two major European trade routes, a city with a 1,300-year history and the capital of the state of Thuringia. The city’s architectural landscape is dominated by the Cathedral Square and two churches – St. Mary’s and St. Severin’s. This square, the size of five football fields, hosts one of Germany’s largest and most magnificent Christmas markets.
The Cathedral Square overlooks the only completely preserved Baroque fortress in Europe, Petersberg. But the most interesting things await us in the narrow streets of medieval Erfurt: one of Germany’s oldest universities, where Martin Luther studied; St. Augustine’s Monastery; Germany’s oldest synagogue, which displays treasures recently discovered in Erfurt from the 13th century; the Fish Market with its magnificent Renaissance-era facades; and the unusual houses of merchants who became fabulously wealthy trading blue dye made from woad, a plant that made Erfurt one of the richest and most prosperous cities in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. And of course, we’ll see Erfurt’s main landmark, the Krämerbrücke, a bridge lined with merchant stalls.
10-11 am
