Well, this trip was a bit of a mess. Our bus driver got lost, so we lost a good portion of time for our Erfurt tour and that was a shame. Erfurt is basically your quintessential German merchant town, complete with a fantastic merchants' bridge, where the shops line the sides of the bridge over a river. Very narrow, but fantastic. Also, houses were apparently named with symbols and pictures that were painted on the front of the house--no house numbers here! It was neat, and I liked it, but I wish we'd had more time to look at the city.
Unfortunately we didn't because then we were off to the Wartburg Castle. For those of you who don't know, the Wartburg is where Martin Luther hid from the Holy Roman Emperor after being excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Also, where he translated the New Testament from Latin to German--what a winner! It was interesting because there were areas that had been renovated with massive mosaics portraying "medieval" life as envisioned by chaps in the 19th century. Very pretty, but sort of funny because it was very romanticised. The room where Martin Luther translated the New Testament was very anti-climactic in comparison, and unfortunately I couldn't take pictures. Too bad--I know some of you would have like to have see it, but it really wasn't that impressive.
Afterwards, we went to the Bachhouse in Eisenach. That was neat! We had a baby concert on period instruments (harpsichords and small pipe organs) and then we got to wander in the museum. I definitely have a new appreciation for Dr. Faber (Witt's organist) and other organists--it's definitely not easy.
Cityscape seems a good subject for murals. But many themes can of course be painted there, for decoration and as a break and escape from looking at cement. This painting by American painter Charles Sheeler, http://EN.WahooArt.com/A55A04/w.nsf/OPRA/BRUE-8DP5GS, would make a good mural as it is as a good painting. The image can be seen as wahooart.com who supplies canvas prints from original art.
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