Day 2 – Eisnach and Erfurt

This is the day the tour really began. We traveled about 2 hours from Frankfurt into the former East Germany and went to Wartburg Castle in Eisnach. This is the place where Luther went into seclusion for 9-10 months and translated the Greek New Testament into German, a first for the German people. He did this in about 10 weeks’ time. Amazing!

What I did NOT know is that another one of my heroes also lived in this castle. Elizabeth of Hungary was a princess, betrothed at age 4 to the King of Thuringia, and came to live at the castle. She was raised by nuns until age 11, when she and the king were married. She always had a heart for the poor and would sneak out of the castle at night to take bread to the hungry. One night her husband came back from a hunt and caught her as she was leaving. He demanded to know what was in her basket, and when she opened it, there were roses in it. It is known as “The Miracle of the Roses.” The castle is covered with paintings and frescos that tell her story. The king died young, and Elizabeth and her children were evicted from the castle when she was only 19. She died at 24.

“Wartburg” gets its name from the king who built it. Known as Ludwig the Leaper, he hiked up there one day and loved the view and the mountain very much. The only problem was it was not in his territory. So he had earth brought in from his own kingdom and spread it around up there. Claiming it as it own, since it was now on his soil, he built the castle. The people did not like it, but no one could dispute his logic.

On one of his hikes to the summit, he was hunting a White Stag. The others in his party had given up, but he kept looking. Finally, he saw it, and shouted, “Wart! Ein Burg!” or “Wait, a mountain!” This doesn’t make much sense to me to be yelling this at a stag, but this is where the castle gets its name.

From there we drove to Erfurt, where Luther joined the Augustinian Monastery, and where he was ordained and celebrated his first Mass. We saw both of these places, as well as the very famous Merchants’ Bridge, where shops and stores and built on a bridge over the river. They did this for the power opportunities (water wheels). At the other end of the bridge is a huge Methodist Church.