3 Best Sights in Weimar, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia

Goethe spent 57 years in Weimar, 47 of them in a house two blocks south of Theaterplatz that has since become a shrine attracting millions of visitors. The Goethe Nationalmuseum consists of several houses, including the Goethehaus, where Goethe lived. It shows an exhibit about life in Weimar around 1750 and contains writings that illustrate not only the great man's literary might but also his interest in the sciences, particularly medicine, and his administrative skills (and frustrations) as minister of state and Weimar's exchequer. You'll see the desk at which Goethe stood to write (he liked to work standing up) and the modest bed in which he died. The rooms are dark and often cramped, but an almost palpable intellectual intensity seems to illuminate them.

Goethe's first house in Weimar, the beloved Gartenhaus, is a modest country cottage where he spent many happy hours, wrote much poetry, and began his masterly classical drama Iphigenie. The house is set amid meadowlike parkland on the bank of the River Ilm. Goethe is said to have felt very close to nature here, and you can soak up the same rural atmosphere on footpaths along the peaceful little river.

This green-shuttered residence, part of the Goethe Nationalmuseum, is on a tree-shaded square not far from Goethe's house. Schiller and his family spent a happy, all-too-brief three years here (he died here in 1805). Schiller's study is tucked underneath the mansard roof, a cozy room dominated by his desk, where he probably completed Wilhelm Tell. Much of the remaining furniture and the collection of books were added later, although they all date from around Schiller's time.