Today we went to the town of Ilmenau in Thüringen. Our transfer station was in Neudietendorf...
The train platform at our transfer station, Neudietendorf
A view over the tracks at the Neudietendorf station
After transferring from there, we arrived in Ilmenau, a small town by the Thüringer Wald.
It is famous for Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe having stayed there and wandered through the forest on the outside of town. We walked through town at first, looking for the address Ashley had written down. This was on a building that had turned into a store...
The sign says, "Here lived Goethe... In this house, Johannes Wolgang von Goethe celebrated his birthday on August 28, 1821"
The biggest building in Ilmenau was probably this Eishalle (ice-skating rink) by the train station
Ashley had written down the address, and we found the street she had written down, but the address number was 14. We started following the road but it turned into a highway around 9 or 10. We kept walking and passed a few places we thought would be the place we were supposed to stay but none were right.
A bridge over a river on the way to our Gästehaus (guest-house)
We passed by a group of houses, past a sports field, past a little country club with a water slide, and then gave up thinking we wrote down the wrong address.
A view of the Thüringer Wald behind the sports field we passed
We looked up the number in the Germany handbook Ashley had and called the number but no one picked up. We eventually got back into town and found the office for the housing but no one answered the door or the phone, so we went to get food at this Ali Baba place. We both got pizza and by the time we were done, the people picked up their phone. We eventually figured it all out after wasting a bunch of coins on the pay-phone. Apparently we did have the right address, we just didn't walk far enough (about 2.8km to be exact), so we took a taxi with a jubilant taxi-driver. He complimented Ashley on her German and asked where she was from. She said Kalifornien and he mentioned that we had an actor as our governer (Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course).
A rock and sign in front of the Gästehaus. The sign says, "Genuine Thuringian Weatherstation... If there is sunshine under the rock, there is sun. If the rock is wet, its raining. If the rock is swinging, its windy. If the rock is white, its snowing. If the rock is not there, its foggy or someone has stolen the rock."
The side of the Gästehaus
A swing at the Gästehaus
Unsere Raum (our room) #1
Unsere Raum #2After finally getting to the room, we decided to walk on the Goethe Wanderweg (Goethe Wander-path) which Goethe famously wandered on...
A sign for the Goethe Wanderweg
A bench on the Goethe Wanderweg... It says "Auguste Gotze's dream-song" for some reason...
Another sign for the Goethe Wanderweg, with directions for different paths
Die Stadt Ilmenau (the city of Ilmenau) from the Goethe Wanderweg
We took the 2.8km-long path back into town and looked around there.
Das Rathaus (city hall)
A caduceus-wielding woman on the corner of a bookstore called Buchhandlung Grimm (named after the Grimm Brothers who are famous for collecting German folk-tales and systematizing the German language in various ways)
After that we went to the small market in town and bought some fruit, cheese, and bread. We eventually walked all the way back to the Gästehaus and passed out.
1 comment:
OK-the Genuine Thuringian Weatherstation is hysterical! I'd love to see a picture of Ben here and there! Love, Mom
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