Weimar Things to Do

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Schiller lived in this house with his family for three years until his death in 1805. The house has been restored as a museum containing a variety of displays on the life and the work of the writer. Works include scripts and costumes from Schiller's plays.

In this house in Frauenplan Johann Wolfgang Goethe lived nearly 50 years and died here 1832. The building was the gift fot him from Duke Carl August (1794). Now there is the Goethe National Museum. You can see there the botanical, mineralogical, literary and art collections.

This playful fountain is in the center of Weimar. Goethe had seen the original in Nürnberg and wanted to have a copy in Weimar.
Unfortunately,it took some time to realize this plan, so when the fountain finally was put up there, Goethe had died.
In my picture you can see a huge hand. Do you think it's a giant, trying to steal the fountain?
He's wearing an invisible cloak, which slipped and his hand can be seen?

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Walking down from the train station towards the center of Weimar, we passed the Neue Museum, the New Museum. On the steps leading up to the entrance there is huge, golden statue, looking somewhat like fresh out of Star Wars. It's a statue by the artist Thomas Schütte, called Der Grosse Geist - The Big Spirit ( or big ghost, as the German word can mean both). It made me want go inside the museum, which specializes in modern art. But again, not enough time, so next time.
I like to play a game for myself when it comes to modern art: I try to think of an appropriate title and then check on the plates how close I was. Here I was completely wrong, as I hadn't thought of any spirit.

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The Belgian architect and artist Henry van der Velde has lived in Weimar and left some remarkable results. The interior of the Nietzsche house is one, this staircase in the academy is another. The Kunstgewerbeschule (School voor Kunstnijverheid) and the academy in Weimar, are the predecessors of Bauhaus. There are also a few villa's left in and around Weimar of this representative of functional Art Nouveau. We found a folder at the Nietzsche house with the addresses. Some of the villa's are in bad repair.
In this neighbourhood are several good, but 'anonymous' buildings.

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Nietzsche, the philosopher with the hammer, had a serious nervous breakdown and was taken in by his mother and sister - now at last he couldn't fight them. They had decided on Weimar because there was a good culture, thanks to. amongst others, Goethe and Schiller. In this house he lived - or was exploited - as a museum piece. His sister 'took care' of his works, editting it to her taste (National Socialism), which gave Nietzsche for years a wrong image.
("Although the Nazis used some of the philosopher's ideas, Nietzsche was deeply opposed to the collective tendencies that labelled National Socialism. He rejected biological racism and German nationalism, writing "every great crime against culture for the last four hundred years lies on their conscience."")
None the less, the 'bell etage' was beautifully redecorated by Van der Velde. A strange contrast with the conservative taste of his sister. A must see!

To the north of the city, slightly away from the main sights, is Jakobskirche. This Baroque church is wonderfully peaceful, and famous for its role as the wedding place of Goethe to Christiane Vulpius. His wife is buried here, along with another of the city's luminaries, Cranach.

Two smaller, but more landscaped parks, can be found to the west of the city in the form of the Hallenpark and Schwan-Seebad. Hallenpark can be found down some stairs through the Congress Centre and Goethe-Schiller Archive, and offers a pleasant place to sit for a while, and some nice shots of the city, like the one here with the spire of Jakobskirche framed so it looks like it forms part of the roof of the Congress Centre. A number of people were making use of the only two days of sunshine that August to bathe on the grass, but there were two many flies for me to rest there for too long.