Tour suggestion
Day 1: Jouney to the Dessau / Wittenberg area
Overnight stay in the Dessau / Wittenberg are.
Day 2: Wittenberg & Leipzig
Luther spent 36 years of his life in Wittenberg. By nailing his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg’s Schlosskirche on October 31, 1517, Luther launched the Reformation. He married Katharina von Bora in Wittenberg and started a family with her here. Follow in Martin Luther’s and Katharina von Bora’s footsteps. Visit the original sites where the Reformation ran its course. Besides Wittenberg’s historical old town centre, you will see the Schlosskirche Cathedral with its famous door to which Luther nailed his theses. It was refounded as a Reformation memorial church in the 19th century and houses the grave of Martin Luther. The "Leucorea" was one of the most famous universities of the 16th century. Luther and Melanchthon lectured here. Passing by the "Hamlet House", about which mysterious tales are told, the tour then proceeds to the old university. On the way to Erfurt, you will stop over in Leipzig. Stroll through the town that in 1519 was the scene of Luther’s famous disputation with Johann Eck, a passionate defender of Catholic theology. Overnight stay in the Erfurt area.
Day 3: Erfurt – Martin Luther’s spiritual home
Erfurt played a vital role in Luther’s transformation into a reformer. He attended university here from 1501-1505, initially studying what were known as ‘the seven liberal arts’, then later moving on to theology and law. Then after a terrifying thunder storm shook him to the core, he took a monk’s vows, and in 1505 he entered a monastery and two years later he entered the priesthood. Go on a guided tour of the city telling about “Martin Luther in Erfurt.” On your way through the town, you will visit fascinating Luther sites such as the Luther Monument, the Michaeliskirche and the Studentenburse, further impressive witnesses to Luther’s life and times. After the guided tour, we recommend strongly that you visit the Augustinerkloster (Augustinian Monastery). On July 17th, 1505, Luther asked to be admitted to the monastery of the Augustinians, an order that was famed for its learning. His life as a monk over the following years was subject to a rigid daily routine and shaped by strict spiritual and ascetic exercises, as well as by scholarly training within the order. Overnight stay in the Erfurt region.
Day 4: Excursion to Eisleben
Eisleben is the town where Luther was born on November 10th, 1483, and died on February 18th, 1546. Luther summed up the significance of Eisleben for him in his famous words “Eisleben was my fatherland!”Visit Luthers Geburtshaus in the Luther Straße, corner Seminar Straße. Only a stone’s throw from the Geburtshaus stands the church St. Petri-Pauli-Kirche where Luther was baptised. Since 1883 The Luther Memorial has stood on almost exactly the same place where in the Middle Ages the town’s court ‘Unter der Linde’ used to be held. The funeral shroud that Luther’s ancestors bought back in 1888 is now exhibited in a splendid quasi-shrine in Luther’s Sterbehaus, the house where Luther died. Overnight stay in the Erfurt area.
Day 5: Excursion to Eisenach
In Eisenach, Luther attended the parish school. The Luther House is one of Eisenach’s oldest timbered houses. According to an old tradition, Martin Luther dwelled in this house during his school years in Eisenach (1498-1501). You will go on the guided tour “Martin Luther – Latin pupil and Junker Joerg”. The tour will take you back in time, to the year 1500, to encounter young Martinus during the years in which he earned his keep as a singing scholar, and then 20 years later – when he was busy changing the course of history. In the afternoon, you will visit Wartburg Castle. To protect Luther from his persecutors, Friedrich the Wise hid him in Wartburg Castle. Under the alias “Junker Joerg”, Luther spent 10 months there following the Imperial Diet of 1521, during which he translated the New Testament in only ten weeks. The translation has since been known as the September Testament. Overnight stay in the Erfurt area.
Day 6: Homeward journey
Copyright program and pictures: © APPINA TRAVEL GmbH
