Erfurt/Buildings

Erfurt: Have you ever seen two medieval Catholic churches side by side competing for attention??? 

 

Bonifacius, 8th century, had founded a chapel here in his drive to Christianize the Germanic tribes;.

Later, approx. 856, the Heathern Saxons hanged him on "Wotan's sacret" oak (in Saxony)

 in Northern Germany I like this large cathedral plaza with the facing row of old town houses

 

Erfurt was a very wealthy free imperial town (not controlled by church or "small" princes)

Here the elegant house of a wealthy patrician

 

City Hall is "young" (19th neo-gothic)

 

Another  richly decorated patrician houses: "House to the large hearth" (also: House of the five senses)

 

frame 1: seeing;    frame two: hearing;     (followed by touching,  tasting,  and smelling)

 

The town's great wealth derived from their monopoly on a blue dye from a plant "Waid". This was their meeting hall.

 

The former factory and storage place of the super-valuable blue dye...Its doom:  the 28th century discovery and importation of indigo from the Americas. Now this great hall is used for very imaginative "Puppet theatre" performances. We saw Goethe's Faust performed here and were impressed: The play was produced on three interplaying levels: each of the five actors had three forms a) human, b) very large puppet; c) small puppet which could pop up from behind anywhere and sort of comment. What a grand idea! and practically NO scenery except a large half-embedded globe that got spun around as needed.

getting ready for the Fasching Parade; the two competing Catholic cathedrals in background