Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately 80 kilometres southwest of Leipzig, 170 kilometres north of Nuremberg and 170 kilometres west of Dresden. Together with the neighbour cities Erfurt and Jena, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia, with approximately 500,000 inhabitants. The city itself has a population of 65,000. Weimar is well known because of its large cultural heritage and its importance in German history.
The Wartburg is a castle originally built in the Middle Ages. It is situated on a precipice of 410 meters (1,350 ft) to the southwest of and overlooking the town of Eisenach, in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It was the home of St. Elisabeth of Hungary, the place where Martin Luther translated the New Testament of the Bible into German, the site of the Wartburg festival of 1817 and the supposed setting for the possibly legendary Sängerkrieg. It was an important inspiration for Ludwig II when he decided to build Neuschwanstein Castle. Wartburg is the most-visited tourist attraction in Thuringia after Weimar. Although the castle today still contains substantial original structures from the 12th through 15th centuries, much of the interior dates back only to the 19th century. In 1999, Wartburg Castle was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List because of its quintessential medieval architecture and its historical and religious significance.
The Augustusburg and Falkenlust Palaces form a historical building complex in Brühl, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The buildings are connected by the spacious gardens and trees of the Schlosspark. Built in the early 18th century, the palaces and adjoining gardens are considered masterpieces of early rococo architecture and have been listed as a UNESCO cultural World Heritage Site since 1984. Augustusburg Palace and its parks also serve as a venue for the Brühl Palace Concerts.
The Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, Germany, houses a major collection of German literature and historical documents. In 1991, the tricentennial of its opening to the public, the Ducal Library was renamed for Duchess Anna Amalia. Today, the library is a public research library for literature and art history. The main focus is German literature from the Classical and the late Romantic eras. The library was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Classical Weimar site because of its testimony to the global cultural importance of Weimar during the late 18th and early 19th centuries during the Weimar Classicism movement.
The Goethe House is a writer's house museum located in the Innenstadt district of Frankfurt, Germany. It is the birthplace and childhood home of German poet and playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It is also the place where Goethe wrote his famous works Götz von Berlichingen,The Sorrows of Young Werther, and the first drafts of Urfaust. The house has mostly been operated as a museum since its 1863 purchase by the Freies Deutsches Hochstift, displaying period furniture and paintings from Goethe's time in the house.
Weimar Classicism was a German literary and cultural movement, whose practitioners established a new humanism from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. It was named after the city of Weimar, Germany, because the leading authors of Weimar Classicism lived there.
The Haus am Horn is a domestic house in Weimar, Germany, designed by Georg Muche. It was built for the Bauhaus Werkschau exhibition which ran from July to September 1923. It was the first building based on Bauhaus design principles, which revolutionized 20th century architectural and aesthetic thinking and practice
The Baroque palace Schloss Belvedere on the outskirts of Weimar, is a pleasure-house (Lustschloss) built for house-parties, built in 1724–1732 to designs of Johann August Richter and Gottfried Heinrich Krohne for Ernst August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. The corps de logis is flanked by symmetrical pavilions. Today it houses part of the art collections of Weimar, with porcelains and faience, furniture and paintings of the eighteenth century. As the summer residence, its gardens, laid out in the French style in 1728–1748, were an essential amenity. A wing of the Orangery in the Schlosspark contains a collection of historical carriages.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. He is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language, his work having a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day.
Tiefurt House is a small stately home on the Ilm river in the Tiefurt quarter of Weimar, about 4 km east of the city centre. It was the summer residence of duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Because of its importance as a centre of culture during the Weimar Classicism movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Tiefurt House was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1998 as part of the Classical Weimar site.
The Goethe-Nationalmuseum is a museum devoted to the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in the town of Weimar in Germany. Originally comprising the Goethe House, where Goethe lived intermittently for 50 years from 1782 to 1832, the museum was founded on 8 August 1885 as a result of the will of Goethe's last living heir, his grandson Walther von Goethe, who left the Goethe House to the state.
Classical Weimar is a UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of 11 sites located in and around the city of Weimar, Germany. The site was inscribed on 2 December 1998. The properties all bear testimony to the influence of Weimar as a cultural centre of the Enlightenment during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A number of notable writers and philosophers lived in Weimar between 1772 and 1805, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schiller, and Christoph Martin Wieland. These figures ushered in and participated in the Weimar Classicism movement, and the architecture of the sites across city reflects the rapid cultural development of the Classical Weimar era.
The Klassik Stiftung Weimar is one of the largest and most significant cultural institutions in Germany. It owns more than 20 museums, palaces, historic houses and parks, as well as literary and art collections, a number of which are World Heritage Sites.
The church of St Peter and Paul in Weimar, Germany, is also known as Herderkirche after Johann Gottfried Herder. It is the most important church building of the town, and is called Stadtkirche, opposed to the courtly Schloßkirche. It has been the church of a Lutheran parish since 1525, after the Reformation. The church is part of the World Heritage Site Classical Weimar, together with other sites affiliated with the Weimar Classicism movement. Inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1998, these sites bear testimony to the cultural importance of Weimar during the late 18th and 19th centuries and the outstanding architecture that arose in response to the cultural values of the time.
The Wilhelm-Ernst-Gymnasium is a secondary school on Herderplatz 14 in Weimar, Germany. Founded in 1712 by Duke William Ernest of Saxe-Weimar, it is the oldest school building in the city. Numerous notable figures such as Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Heinrich Voss, Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer and Johann Karl August Musäus studied here. It is a designated historic site and is one of the few secular buildings of the pre-classical period still remaining in Weimar. It is prominently located in the urban center and is one of three sites forming the UNESCO World Heritage Site Classical Weimar, created in 1998.
The Main Cycleway is a major German bicycle path running for about 600 km along the River Main in Germany. It starts from either Creußen or Bischofsgrün and ends in Mainz. The General German Bicycle Club (ADFC) rated the trail five stars in 2008, the first path in Germany to receive this award. Approximately 90% of the path is paved and 77% of the route is at least 2.5 metres wide.
Schloss Weimar is a Schloss (palace) in Weimar, Thuringia, Germany. It is now called Stadtschloss to distinguish it from other palaces in and around Weimar. It was the residence of the dukes of Saxe-Weimar and Eisenach, and has also been called Residenzschloss. Names in English include Palace at Weimar, Grand Ducal Palace, City Palace and City Castle. The building is located at the north end of the town's park along the Ilm river, Park an der Ilm. It forms part of the World Heritage Site "Classical Weimar", along with other sites associated with Weimar's importance as a cultural hub during the late 18th and 19th centuries.
The Park an der Ilm is a large Landschaftspark in Weimar, Thuringia. It was created in the 18th century, influenced by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and has not been changed much, preserving a park of the period. It forms part of the World Heritage Site "Classical Weimar along with other sites across Weimar bearing testimony to the city's historical importance as a cultural hub during the Weimar Classicism movement in the late 18th and 19th centuries".
Bauhaus and its Sites in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau is a World Heritage Site in Germany, comprising six separate sites which are associated with the Bauhaus art school. It was designated in 1996 with four initial sites, and in 2017 two further sites were added.
