Wartburg Schloss

Today we went to the Wartburg Castle.  For those of you who do not know, this is where Martin Luther hid during the time of the Reformation and translated the New Testament from Latin to German - this translation became the basis for the rules of the German language spoken today.  Besides Luther, the castle also has a history involving such significant German figures as Walther von der Vogelweide, as well as St. Elizabeth.  For more information of the history of the castle, see these sites:

English: http://www.sacred-destinations.com/germany/wartburg-castle
German: http://www.wartburg-eisenach.de/frame_sn.htm

We used the Schoenes Wochenende ticket, which lets up to five people travel in the surrounding region for 37 Euros and you can split that between all of the travelers, which is pretty nice.  This can be found through Deutsche Bahn and be bought right from a machine at the station.  I highly recommend looking into it if any of you are thinking about traveling Germany, check to see if it is available in your region.  REMEMBER: it is only available on weekends.

Once in Eisenach, we walked around and followed signs for about 30 min (not including a lunch break) and thought we were lost (we weren't) and ran into a lady to ask directions from.  She ended up telling us that she was going there anyway and we could follow her, which was great.  She took us all the way up the 500 foot mountain. My facebook pictures Elizabeth tagged me in are very deceiving. I was extremely sore, sweaty, and starting to cry inside after walking all the way from the station up a mountain, which was often a steep trek.  You'll see how far away the city was in some of my pics from the castle.

Speaking of which, here they are!

The whole Wartburg

The main central courtyard

A tower in the courtyard

A tapestry

A room where the ceiling was made out of mosaic-ed glass and gold-plated squares

This was on a staircase

This was once a dance hall, a place to hold political events, and lastly a church

Thuringer Wald and Eisenach... where we came from... so far away

I don't remember exactly what this was, but it was very pretty and in the museum

Luther's room

The donkeys (Esel) waiting to give people rides up the mountain