Here's a quick blip about our 1 day itinerary in Weimar. I won't go into much details about the historical facts of each place since that's the fun of visiting them, but we can walk through the town together. We left out the Buchenwald Memorial for another day along with some of the gardens since we went in February when everything was still cold & grey 😅 But I'll make sure to blog again on our next trip there so you can plan a second day!
What we saw in a day:
Goethe Schiller Monument (5 min)
Bach Monument (1 min)
Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek (1-2 hr)
Schlossmuseum (2 hr)
Church of St. Peter and St. Paul (30 min)
Goethe House @ Goethe Nationalmuseum (1-2 hr)
Weimarer Fürstengruft/Russian Orthodox Chapel @ Historic Cemetery (1 hr)
First thing - if you ride the train into town, be aware that the station is about a 15 min walk from the main part of the city (shown below). It's a straight shot so you don't have to worry about getting lost. The walk isn't really scenic, but there were a few cool buildings along the way.
I'd say Saturdays are far busier than Sundays even though most of the tourist spots here are open both days. You just won't find any stores open on Sundays, other than the restaurants/cafes (as is the norm in Germany). So plan accordingly, Instagrammers 😋
You'll know you've hit the main part of town when you see the bank 'Postbank Finanzcenter' on your right. Walk further down and you'll see a cute pink pharmacy!
Now if you turn to the left, you'll see a little brat stand on the road. My husband loves the brats here so you can stop by for a little snack! 🌭
Across from this brat stand, you'll see a smaller road filled with shops like a bakery called 'Back Factory,' a Nordsee, and Subways. Walk past these stores and you'll have arrived at the 'Theaterplatz.' It's this really big plaza that almost looks empty, but here you'll find the Bauhaus Museum on the left and the Goethe-Schiller Monument on the right
The Goethe Schiller Monument should just be a quick stop to look at this famous monument. Goethe and Schiller are probably the two most revered figures in German literature, and you can learn much about Goethe here in Weimar where he spent much of his adult life. Fun fact: Goethe(left) was far shorter than his good friend, Schiller(right), but the monument portrays them at the same height.
I would've loved to visit the Bauhaus Museum, but unfortunately it is closed for renovations and will not open again until next year, 2019.
After the monument, you may notice a gelato/icecream shop, Eiscafe Venezia 🍨 They have some unique flavors named after Goethe/Schiller and we thought it was really good! They have a convenient walk up window where you can just grab some icecream to-go and keep walking~
As you keep walking, you'll see sort of a fork, take a left! (A cool clock sits here at the fork in front of a cafe)
This street is full of shops and cafes that you can just stroll past if you have no interest, but there is a fun shop called "Mineralien und Fossilienhandel Peter Gensel." Here you'll find all kinds of shells, fossils, collectible insects, etc.
Now keep walking the path shown to reach the 'Markt' Center. This is where you would normally find the Christmas Markets set up along with the 'Tourist Info' building! You can buy some tickets here at the Tourist Info, but they do not sell tickets for the Anna Amalia Bibliotek (disregard what their website say - you'll have to buy them directly at the library). You can also find some free city maps here or buy some tour books/souvenirs.
Now we head to the gorgeous Anna Amalia Bibliotek! On your way there, you'll see the very small Bach Monument on the left. I believe this was created to commemorate the years he lived in Weimar
The admission for the library was €8 and came with an audio tour. They let a group in every so often, not sure how often, but they had us wait until the 'next time' posted.
There are some really cool books stored here such as a Luther Bible from the 1500s and some Shakespeares from his personal translator. There was also a section about the fire a decade back and shows some of the damaged works. We thought this library was absolutely gorgeous and totally Instagram worthy! 😜
Next is the Schloss Museum! Funny story behind this museum, I thought it was going to be a museum about the history of castles, but it was simply a museum built in a castle. It's right down the road from the library, you'll see it leaving the library to your right.
We spent quite a while here admiring the variety of rooms in this castle. It was the residence of the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach who married Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia. She was an important patron of the arts who dedicated some of the rooms to the writers and musicians of Weimar. Each room was designed really uniquely from the next so it's a lot of fun to walk through this castle. There's even a ballroom if you want to take some fun photos here!
This is when we started getting hungry so we stopped for lunch. Creperie Du Palais is quite good, a little pricey, but they have both savory and sweet crepes. Although, for our sweet crepe, we thought the vanilla ice cream it came with outshined the crepe itself! It's been hard to find good vanilla ice cream here so we really enjoyed it 😂 Restaurant San is also nearby. A decent Korean restaurant which is incredibly hard to find in this area!
Afterwards, we headed to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. It's an interestingly designed church so we wanted to check it out real quick. Not much to it inside, but the main display was quite beautiful.
So at this point, we were surprised at how quickly we had gotten through things. We still had an hour till the general closing time for the attractions here so we decided to stop by the Goethe House/Museum on our way to the cemetery.
You'll realize as you enter the modern museum that it's strangely built attached to Goethe's main home during his stay in Weimar. After you purchase your tickets and pick up your audio tour, you'll be led to a door behind you that leads right outside of his house. We didn't think there was much to the house, but it was cool to see his office/library where he produced his works.
After browsing the house, you can head back towards the museum where you can see an exhibit of his works on the second floor. It's not a large museum, but it was a pretty interesting to see the variety of works he produced. I thought he was just a well known writer, but he was also an artist, botanist, and military figure who dabbled in anatomy, geology, colour theory, and much more.
You'll find Andy Warhol's works featuring Goethe here. Perhaps an ode to Goethe's works on colour theory?
Final stop! We weren't expecting anything special at this cemetery - my husband just thinks really old cemeteries are cool, but turns out there were interesting things to see here. This is where Goethe and Schiller's tombs are located along with this gorgeous Russian Orthodox Chapel where the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia is buried with her husband.
And that ends our day trip in Weimar! We had to head home to take care of our pups, but you could stick around for dinner before heading home. I'm always up for any questions you may have. Please feel free to leave them in the comments~
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