This is part 10 of 16 of a journey through my home country: Germany.

I invite everyone to take a closer look at what I call home. I will show you sides of today-Germany you didn't know of - especially when you are not German.
A lot of "foreigners" (actually I don't really like this word) connect Germany with beer, cars, lederhosen and sauerkraut. I admit these are parts of Germany and important ones too (especially the beer and the cars), but they by far are not everything!

This article serie will show you the 16 countries of Germany, some quite similar to each other, some totally different. Sure, this serie will mainly feature photography, but perhaps I will link to other styles of art like modern German music or so.

Our journey leads us through (click the ones in italic to see that article):

_{Bavaria
Saxony
Brandenburg
Berlin
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Schleswig-Holstein
Hamburg
Lower Saxony
Saxony-Anhalt
Thuringia
Hesse
Baden-Wuerttemberg
Rhineland-Palatinate
Saarland
North Rhine-Westphalia
Bremen}

... or if you want to take a look at our southern neighbour, Austria, please read Exploring Austria by =Glasperlenspielerin.

Please, come and see...

Part 10 of 16 - Thuringia (Thüringen)

Welcome back to my journey through Germany.
This week, we'll visit Thuringia or Thüringen, as we call it. Thuringia is one of the socalled "new states", meaning it was part of the GDR before 1990. Yet, as you can see, these "new states" have been a part of Germany for almost 20 years now, meaning about a third of the overall existance of the Federal Republic. I consider them an integral part of our country.

Thuringia is rather small, it's the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population (about 2.3 million inhabitants) of Germany's sixteen states. Through history, it is closely connected with Hesse, which it borders and which I'll deal with next week. It also shares a similar type of landscape and some of the culture, despite big differences in dialect.
Thuringia had a great impact on German culture, especially on literature, but more on that later. For now, let me show you some small impressions before we start with the cities:

The capital of Thuringia is Erfurt. As Thuringia's biggest city, it has about 203,000 inhabitants and is the capital closest to the center of Germany. It's more than 1260 years old, what is quite old, even among the ancient medieval German cities. It became Prussian in 1802 and remained so for almost 150 years. After World War II, when it suffered only light damage, it was captured by the Americans, which gave it to Soviet Russia some weeks later. It became a capital first in the year 1990.
Among many remakable and old buildings, Erfurt's two big churches stand out, as much as the Krämerbrücke (first 2 pics), which looks like a street but actually is a bridge.

The second biggest city of Thuringia is Jena. Though it's over 800 years old, it's primarily known for it's modernity. Jena is a world center for precision instruments and especially optics. Everybody knows Carl Zeiss Jena or Schott, both companies that left Jena after WWII but bought back their East German counterparts after the German Reunification and now again produce optical high quality products in this town. Jena also has a very renown university and is one of the few East German boomtowns.

The last town I want to showcase here is Weimar. It is important in Germany's cultural as well as political history. First, this is the town where some of the best German writers, such as Schiller or Goethe and many others, gathered and produced an important ammount of their works. German pupils and students still have to learn much of what they wrote, what they don't always see as a pleasure.
Furthermore, the constitution of the Weimar Republic - the first united, democratic German state - was drafted here: an important step from the seperated, monarchistic, party feudal states to the Federal Republic we are today. Yet, the means of the Nazis to gain power in our country were the weakness of this constitution.

The touristic center of Thuringia, beside the bigger cities, is the Thuringian Forest, a mountain range perfectly made for hiking, cycling and all kinds of wintersports.
A prominet feature of the Thuringian Forest is the Wartburg, close to the city of Eisenach. The Wartburg was a refuge to Martin Luther, this is the place where the Bible was first translated from latin into another language: German. While Luther did so, according to the legend, Satan appeared, yet a fearless monk he was, Luther threw the bottle of ink after him.

As you can see, mountain ranges of a medium size make the face of Thuringia. It's a mostly soft and hilly landscape with some also medium sized rivers flowing through: the Saale and the Werra. In the east, Thuringia is flattening again, yet besides the Thuringian Forest, there are parts of the already mentioned Harz and the Rhön Mountains on Thuringian soil.
Parts of the southern branch of the Harz is called the Kyffhäuser, here you can find a monument for Emperor Barbarossa.
I had a hard time finding pictures of all that, but besides Barbarossa, the quantity (NOT quality!) of the outcome was... poor, so here: Barbarossa plus other nice pics of Thuringia!

Well, that's about it. A rather short article this week - but I can't write ~1,500 words in every article. So I'll rather keep it short in small states - like Thuringia is.
Yet, let me finally add the following:
Unlike many other German states, that were fused from different kingdoms and duchys (many of which rivalling for centuries), Thuringia had always been a relatively homogenous state and as such has a long tradition. Thuringian cities are mostly small, but old. Even the smallest towns may have seen some of the most devastating wars or plagues that ever came across this continent. Some of them have seen more time pass by from their initial creation to the birth of Columbus than they have from then to nowadays.
So, Thuringians are relatively proud of their history, their tradition and their sausage. Yes, their sausage: Thuringian Grilled Sausage is one of the best things to put on a barbacue - even if the people of Nuremberg would disagree.

Now, this was only a very, very short trip through Thuringia and I know I missed a lot (if not almost everything). But this is supposed to be a short, informative journal and not a travel guide. I hope you like the pictures - if you do, please give the artists a visit and/or a fav, they really deserve it.

If you have any questions about this station of our trip or Germany as a whole: please ask, I'll try to answer as quick as possible.
And if you have any suggestions about how to make this trip any better, please don't hesitate to write me, either.

Artists featured in this article

Looking forward for your comments - and the next station of this trip...