Erfurt - Sunday 5 April
Apr. 8th, 2026 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeSunday was my final day in Erfurt so it was an opportunity to see some of the sights that I didn't get to see on the Friday. I had toyed with going back to Weimar, but with a train booked early evening and not wanting to carry my bag with me all day, staying in the Thuringian capital was the best option. I got up for breakfast - the usual - then headed back to bed for three-quarters of an hour, the previous two days' exertions really catching up with me. I still managed to check out early though and left my bag behind the desk while I went exploring.
The Zitadelle Petersburg was my first port of call, and it's much larger than its Spandau equivalent, despite it being of similar crenelated and pointed design. I can see why the lady suggested I'd need longer than forty minutes to see all of it on the Friday. I went to the exhibition first, buying my ticket that gave me access to the whole complex. This basically entailed an introduction to the citadel in the Kommandantenhaus. It covered the period before the place was a fort, when a monastery was set up on this hill overlooking the city of Erfurt (the views across to the cathedral and church of St. Severi are definitely the best in the city). It also highlighted the lives of the soldiers in the city and the strict living standards they had to adhere to. There was also discussion of the gunpowder room, which was built as far away from the city as they could under a mountain of earth in case there was an explosion (gunpowder was only ever stored here during war time). This was the last place I visited, but there was a weird challenge thing where you had to do something so the gunpowder didn't go off and I didn't understand it. I also feared a jump scare in what was a rather dark room, although as I was on my own, for a while I did fear I was trapped there. The second place I visited was the Paradiesgärten – Gartenparadiese with its Adam and Eve mural on the eves at its front. This was a little disappointing from an exhibition point of view. Fully in German, it detailed some of the manicured gardens at various castles and estates throughout Germany. It didn't seem overly relevant to the Zitadelle although this was partially renovated for BUGA 2021, Germany's equivalent of the National Flower Show. There was an interactive meadow at the far end that didn't really interact with much, but we were encouraged to walk on it. I'm not sure why.
However, what was interesting was the building itself, and walking around there were a few QR codes that gave you commentary in English. This was done by an elderly sassy woman who was great value, and by clicking on one QR code, I unlocked many more chapters in this audio guide. This building was the former monastery church of St. Peter and Paul, and although it was heavily destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars, this spiritual center of St. Peter's Monastery has been partially restored. The highlight was the old paintwork depicting a menorah and two of the saints, in an ocre hew. The audio guide took me through how these were restored, and the religious background of each, while I also got to learn more about the construction of the building and the symbolism behind some of the pillars. There was also a lot of discussion about monastic life through the years, including when standards slipped and when new decrees added an even stricter lifestyle on the monks. This was all fascinating, even if I only discovered most of the audio guide after I had left the church. I could go back in and see the apostles though, which were beyond the paywall, so I sat there a while and just absorbed the information. After this, with a greater appreciation of the building, I looked at the external architecture before appreciating the Zitadelle as a whole. There are old barracks here, as you would expect, while the 1913-built military prison functioned as a police prison from 1925-33 then a "protective custody camp" for political prisoners. During the Nazi era, it acted as a remand prison for a Wehrmacht court martial in the Kommandantenhaus.
There were a few other highlights here too, including the Verkehrsgarten which is basically a driving school for children so they could learn the rules of the road. Think go-karting except with a serious edge. I also noted the wineries, bakery and other things that were needed to keep the bastion functioning, before descending past the huge ERFURT sign via the observation deck (I used the lift to get down due to my burning feet) and out towards the cathedral. As I did, I noted the myriad passageways through the fortifications that enabled swift escape if necessary, while I also took in the wonderful panorama afforded by being at the highest point in the region. Around the back of the restaurant, which looked a little incongruous against the older brick buildings, I saw the rather cute Fidi the bat looking happy with herself. Apparently, she likes the daytime more than the night.
I managed to visit the main cathedral and the church of St. Severi next door after my trip to the Zitadelle. Both had examples of fine stained glass windows and religious artwork, but it is the alter in the cathedral that's most striking (this is oddly behind you when you make your way in). However, these churches were very much like the countless others I have visited, so I didn't hang around too long. I could have gone and seen the big bell Maria Gloriosa on a guided tour, but I didn't fancy the 15-minute wait with my aching feet, nor having to deal with German. I was just too tired, so instead I grabbed a Thuringer Bratwurst and pilsner from a nearby sausage stand and sat on the terrace overlooking the funfair that had overtaken Domplatz. Later, I would have to navigate through that to get to my next port of call.
I wanted to go to the Topf und Söhne Memorial - they were the company that supplied the SS with the ovens that allowed for the disposal of bodies in the concentration camps in World War Two. It's a memorial to industrial complicity in genocide, particularly as they were more than happy to provide technical solutions to "optimize" the killing in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. This memorial was a long way out of town though, so my next best option was the Memorial and Educational Site Andreasstraße. This focused on repression and resistance during the SED dictatorship in Thuringia from 1949 to 1989. Over 5,000 people were imprisoned here for resisting the Communist regime, but on 4 December 1989, the people occupied the building and prevented the destruction of many files. It was the first occupation of a bastion of the "Stasi" during the Peaceful Revolution. There are a few photos on metal plinths outside the museum but I could not go into the museum itself as it was closed for the Easter weekend.
This left me with the Municipal Museum "Haus zum Stockfisch", which is in a beautiful late Renaissance house. It's rather striking, with grey and white tiles halfway up then yellow painted walls above it. Alas, nearly all of the exhibitions here were in German, which was a little frustrating as I understood enough, but not quite enough to fully comprehend everything. The one thing that I did manage to follow, though, was the destruction of the old city wall to make way for the railway station. With German unification in 1871, and the German lands largely set by 1848, Erfurt no longer really needed a bastion as it was in the centre of the country. I know that in the 1840s, there were huge debates about ploughing through the ancient walls of York to allow the railway station to be built - these were rebuffed at the time - so it was interesting to see that Erfurt went the other way. On the ground floor, there was the usual collection of ecclesiastical and religious paraphernalia from the Middle Ages, but some of the printed things were interesting as Erfurt as an early centre for this industry. The battered hands, with broken fingers, of some 14th century torture victim were pretty grizzly, as were the foot stocks taking pride of place in the centre of the room. The basement probably offered the best exhibit though, the Nabel der Welt (Navel of the World) which detailed some of the archeological finds in the area. These were in four separate display cases and you had to place your palm over a tablet to access them. Once done, a perspex box containing that artefact (a skull, a weapon, some coins etc) was then displayed, lit up for you to see. Fortunately, there was an English translation on each of these four cases, giving me some greater context too.
My feet were throbbing by this point and I ended up having a half an hour sit in the hotel lobby in an attempt to recover. The blue and yellow decor was far from relaxing, but it's a new hotel and a comfortable one at that. With over an hour still to kill, I thought I'd try and get some food somewhere, wanting something quick and simple. I had wanted to go to the McDonald's on Anger, but loads of teenagers went in simultaneously, so I decided just to go to Hauptbahnhof and see what was there. Maccies was the best of a rather meagre offering, but it was just a kiosk, with a single long bench to stand and eat. This wasn't great for my feet but I ordered a double cheeseburger meal anyway and scranned it down quickly. I then walked across the other side of the station, noting where the old city walls used to run, and being delighted to see a small metal bridge over a stream which hugged the side of the building. I then played Animal Crossing in the waiting room while two people ate pizza nosily, feeding it to each other on various occasions.
The train journey back was straightforward enough, although we were stuck outside Halle (Saale) for a quarter of an hour due to a train ahead of us having failing power. This meant I got back into Berlin at 8:30pm. With Wolfie having his exam at 9pm and needing two hours of silence in the house, I decided to make myself scarce and go to The Castle. I had arranged to meet up with Al and Fierce and had been in regular communication throughout the day. I had feared that Deustche Bahn would scupper these plans, but fortunately, a 15-minute delay was easy to deal with. We all arrived at around 9pm, where we had a few drinks and a chat. Fierce shared their olive pizza which was surprisingly nice, while I met a Canadian guy who was touring Europe, travelling from Amsterdam to Katowice to watch his brother play ice hockey. He was an interesting distraction while the staff changed the keg on the beer I had ordered, our conversation having started when he let me go ahead of him in the queue.
I received an alert that Wolfie had passed his exam at around 11pm, at the time when everyone wanted to leave anyway. This was probably best for me too, as I had work on the Monday, so we all headed off and I was back home by midnight. Wolfie was as happy as a wolf with a hat and we resolved to go out on the Monday evening to celebrate, not least because it was also our anniversary. So, after I had finished work (Wolfie was off as Monday was a holiday in Germany), we headed down to Alexanderplatz to check out Angry Chicken. This is a Korean fried chicken place we had been meaning to try for a while, so we were disheartened when we went there to discover that branch was undergoing renovation work. It was frustrating that this hadn't been mentioned on the website, but they do have another outlet near Kottbusser Tor so we went there instead (we only had gone to Alexanderplatz initially due to ease of access). We arrived just in time as despite it closing at 9pm, they had run out of chicken. They only had enough for one chicken bites meal, which we shared. I weighed up whether to leave or not, fearing this wouldn't be enough food, but they gave us the XXL 15 piece meal as opposed to the L 9 piece meal so it was more than enough (I ended up tipping the difference). I felt a little uncomfortable watching the staff turn away expectant customers, but the chicken was hot and delicious, while the cinnamon sweet sauce with sesame seeds really worked. This is one of their milder coatings and I think next time Wolfie will go for something spicier, but we have found recently that due to portion sizes, sharing a meal often works best for us. The fries were beautifully hot and crispy too, so we'll definitely be going back.
After this, we popped over to Biererei, one of our favourite bars in the city, and one where the barman recognised us. The only negative about this place is they only have one toilet, with me needing to go seven times due to the slackness of my bladder. They do have some of the best beer in the city, and we had many a DIPA and TIPA from Spanish brewery Noma. We ended on a couple of high-strength dark beers, including a 15.5% DDF M*rs beer from Vault City, which was afforded our 26th 5-star rating on Untappd. We hemmed over this for a while as it tasted more like a Snickers than a Mars to me, and the barkeep pushed us in the 4.75 direction as a result, but in the end, we couldn't work out how it could be improved. The barman looked after us by providing water too and we left at around 11:30pm in order to get back home, what with there being no holiday service but just a Sunday service on the trains. We had to go a bit of a convoluted route, but managed to make it comfortably, and we weren't particularly hungry after our epic meal, which was rare. We weren't too drunk either, but yesterday was still a sluggish day. It had been a bit of a boozy Easter though, so I'm looking forward to taking a few days off alcohol again, having progressed on this quite well in March.
The Zitadelle Petersburg was my first port of call, and it's much larger than its Spandau equivalent, despite it being of similar crenelated and pointed design. I can see why the lady suggested I'd need longer than forty minutes to see all of it on the Friday. I went to the exhibition first, buying my ticket that gave me access to the whole complex. This basically entailed an introduction to the citadel in the Kommandantenhaus. It covered the period before the place was a fort, when a monastery was set up on this hill overlooking the city of Erfurt (the views across to the cathedral and church of St. Severi are definitely the best in the city). It also highlighted the lives of the soldiers in the city and the strict living standards they had to adhere to. There was also discussion of the gunpowder room, which was built as far away from the city as they could under a mountain of earth in case there was an explosion (gunpowder was only ever stored here during war time). This was the last place I visited, but there was a weird challenge thing where you had to do something so the gunpowder didn't go off and I didn't understand it. I also feared a jump scare in what was a rather dark room, although as I was on my own, for a while I did fear I was trapped there. The second place I visited was the Paradiesgärten – Gartenparadiese with its Adam and Eve mural on the eves at its front. This was a little disappointing from an exhibition point of view. Fully in German, it detailed some of the manicured gardens at various castles and estates throughout Germany. It didn't seem overly relevant to the Zitadelle although this was partially renovated for BUGA 2021, Germany's equivalent of the National Flower Show. There was an interactive meadow at the far end that didn't really interact with much, but we were encouraged to walk on it. I'm not sure why.
However, what was interesting was the building itself, and walking around there were a few QR codes that gave you commentary in English. This was done by an elderly sassy woman who was great value, and by clicking on one QR code, I unlocked many more chapters in this audio guide. This building was the former monastery church of St. Peter and Paul, and although it was heavily destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars, this spiritual center of St. Peter's Monastery has been partially restored. The highlight was the old paintwork depicting a menorah and two of the saints, in an ocre hew. The audio guide took me through how these were restored, and the religious background of each, while I also got to learn more about the construction of the building and the symbolism behind some of the pillars. There was also a lot of discussion about monastic life through the years, including when standards slipped and when new decrees added an even stricter lifestyle on the monks. This was all fascinating, even if I only discovered most of the audio guide after I had left the church. I could go back in and see the apostles though, which were beyond the paywall, so I sat there a while and just absorbed the information. After this, with a greater appreciation of the building, I looked at the external architecture before appreciating the Zitadelle as a whole. There are old barracks here, as you would expect, while the 1913-built military prison functioned as a police prison from 1925-33 then a "protective custody camp" for political prisoners. During the Nazi era, it acted as a remand prison for a Wehrmacht court martial in the Kommandantenhaus.
There were a few other highlights here too, including the Verkehrsgarten which is basically a driving school for children so they could learn the rules of the road. Think go-karting except with a serious edge. I also noted the wineries, bakery and other things that were needed to keep the bastion functioning, before descending past the huge ERFURT sign via the observation deck (I used the lift to get down due to my burning feet) and out towards the cathedral. As I did, I noted the myriad passageways through the fortifications that enabled swift escape if necessary, while I also took in the wonderful panorama afforded by being at the highest point in the region. Around the back of the restaurant, which looked a little incongruous against the older brick buildings, I saw the rather cute Fidi the bat looking happy with herself. Apparently, she likes the daytime more than the night.
I managed to visit the main cathedral and the church of St. Severi next door after my trip to the Zitadelle. Both had examples of fine stained glass windows and religious artwork, but it is the alter in the cathedral that's most striking (this is oddly behind you when you make your way in). However, these churches were very much like the countless others I have visited, so I didn't hang around too long. I could have gone and seen the big bell Maria Gloriosa on a guided tour, but I didn't fancy the 15-minute wait with my aching feet, nor having to deal with German. I was just too tired, so instead I grabbed a Thuringer Bratwurst and pilsner from a nearby sausage stand and sat on the terrace overlooking the funfair that had overtaken Domplatz. Later, I would have to navigate through that to get to my next port of call.
I wanted to go to the Topf und Söhne Memorial - they were the company that supplied the SS with the ovens that allowed for the disposal of bodies in the concentration camps in World War Two. It's a memorial to industrial complicity in genocide, particularly as they were more than happy to provide technical solutions to "optimize" the killing in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. This memorial was a long way out of town though, so my next best option was the Memorial and Educational Site Andreasstraße. This focused on repression and resistance during the SED dictatorship in Thuringia from 1949 to 1989. Over 5,000 people were imprisoned here for resisting the Communist regime, but on 4 December 1989, the people occupied the building and prevented the destruction of many files. It was the first occupation of a bastion of the "Stasi" during the Peaceful Revolution. There are a few photos on metal plinths outside the museum but I could not go into the museum itself as it was closed for the Easter weekend.
This left me with the Municipal Museum "Haus zum Stockfisch", which is in a beautiful late Renaissance house. It's rather striking, with grey and white tiles halfway up then yellow painted walls above it. Alas, nearly all of the exhibitions here were in German, which was a little frustrating as I understood enough, but not quite enough to fully comprehend everything. The one thing that I did manage to follow, though, was the destruction of the old city wall to make way for the railway station. With German unification in 1871, and the German lands largely set by 1848, Erfurt no longer really needed a bastion as it was in the centre of the country. I know that in the 1840s, there were huge debates about ploughing through the ancient walls of York to allow the railway station to be built - these were rebuffed at the time - so it was interesting to see that Erfurt went the other way. On the ground floor, there was the usual collection of ecclesiastical and religious paraphernalia from the Middle Ages, but some of the printed things were interesting as Erfurt as an early centre for this industry. The battered hands, with broken fingers, of some 14th century torture victim were pretty grizzly, as were the foot stocks taking pride of place in the centre of the room. The basement probably offered the best exhibit though, the Nabel der Welt (Navel of the World) which detailed some of the archeological finds in the area. These were in four separate display cases and you had to place your palm over a tablet to access them. Once done, a perspex box containing that artefact (a skull, a weapon, some coins etc) was then displayed, lit up for you to see. Fortunately, there was an English translation on each of these four cases, giving me some greater context too.
My feet were throbbing by this point and I ended up having a half an hour sit in the hotel lobby in an attempt to recover. The blue and yellow decor was far from relaxing, but it's a new hotel and a comfortable one at that. With over an hour still to kill, I thought I'd try and get some food somewhere, wanting something quick and simple. I had wanted to go to the McDonald's on Anger, but loads of teenagers went in simultaneously, so I decided just to go to Hauptbahnhof and see what was there. Maccies was the best of a rather meagre offering, but it was just a kiosk, with a single long bench to stand and eat. This wasn't great for my feet but I ordered a double cheeseburger meal anyway and scranned it down quickly. I then walked across the other side of the station, noting where the old city walls used to run, and being delighted to see a small metal bridge over a stream which hugged the side of the building. I then played Animal Crossing in the waiting room while two people ate pizza nosily, feeding it to each other on various occasions.
The train journey back was straightforward enough, although we were stuck outside Halle (Saale) for a quarter of an hour due to a train ahead of us having failing power. This meant I got back into Berlin at 8:30pm. With Wolfie having his exam at 9pm and needing two hours of silence in the house, I decided to make myself scarce and go to The Castle. I had arranged to meet up with Al and Fierce and had been in regular communication throughout the day. I had feared that Deustche Bahn would scupper these plans, but fortunately, a 15-minute delay was easy to deal with. We all arrived at around 9pm, where we had a few drinks and a chat. Fierce shared their olive pizza which was surprisingly nice, while I met a Canadian guy who was touring Europe, travelling from Amsterdam to Katowice to watch his brother play ice hockey. He was an interesting distraction while the staff changed the keg on the beer I had ordered, our conversation having started when he let me go ahead of him in the queue.
I received an alert that Wolfie had passed his exam at around 11pm, at the time when everyone wanted to leave anyway. This was probably best for me too, as I had work on the Monday, so we all headed off and I was back home by midnight. Wolfie was as happy as a wolf with a hat and we resolved to go out on the Monday evening to celebrate, not least because it was also our anniversary. So, after I had finished work (Wolfie was off as Monday was a holiday in Germany), we headed down to Alexanderplatz to check out Angry Chicken. This is a Korean fried chicken place we had been meaning to try for a while, so we were disheartened when we went there to discover that branch was undergoing renovation work. It was frustrating that this hadn't been mentioned on the website, but they do have another outlet near Kottbusser Tor so we went there instead (we only had gone to Alexanderplatz initially due to ease of access). We arrived just in time as despite it closing at 9pm, they had run out of chicken. They only had enough for one chicken bites meal, which we shared. I weighed up whether to leave or not, fearing this wouldn't be enough food, but they gave us the XXL 15 piece meal as opposed to the L 9 piece meal so it was more than enough (I ended up tipping the difference). I felt a little uncomfortable watching the staff turn away expectant customers, but the chicken was hot and delicious, while the cinnamon sweet sauce with sesame seeds really worked. This is one of their milder coatings and I think next time Wolfie will go for something spicier, but we have found recently that due to portion sizes, sharing a meal often works best for us. The fries were beautifully hot and crispy too, so we'll definitely be going back.
After this, we popped over to Biererei, one of our favourite bars in the city, and one where the barman recognised us. The only negative about this place is they only have one toilet, with me needing to go seven times due to the slackness of my bladder. They do have some of the best beer in the city, and we had many a DIPA and TIPA from Spanish brewery Noma. We ended on a couple of high-strength dark beers, including a 15.5% DDF M*rs beer from Vault City, which was afforded our 26th 5-star rating on Untappd. We hemmed over this for a while as it tasted more like a Snickers than a Mars to me, and the barkeep pushed us in the 4.75 direction as a result, but in the end, we couldn't work out how it could be improved. The barman looked after us by providing water too and we left at around 11:30pm in order to get back home, what with there being no holiday service but just a Sunday service on the trains. We had to go a bit of a convoluted route, but managed to make it comfortably, and we weren't particularly hungry after our epic meal, which was rare. We weren't too drunk either, but yesterday was still a sluggish day. It had been a bit of a boozy Easter though, so I'm looking forward to taking a few days off alcohol again, having progressed on this quite well in March.
