Wash is done, shit's cleaned up a little, and now I'm all caught up on pics and writing. A little into the Altstadt today, lunch, and some supplies for tomorrow, but the main goal is to be sure that I'm ready to go for the hike, as early as possible. Good forecast, light pack, legs in good condition, back ok; as long as everything's repacked by tonight and the water doesn't tip the weight weird, this should be quite doable. Famous last words?
260. Modernist architecture in the classic center.
261. Post office and a bit of Anger 1.
262. Church and plaza.
I need to take better notes...or get a map. All of this stuff has actual names.
263. Across the Angerplatz.
264. Classic old half-timber house; Erfurt has enough of these left to conclude that the Altstadt was never bombed or shelled during the last war.
265. Neat relief on this bridge by the above house.
266. Crazy Baroque frontage.
267. Look down the street.
268. And at the end; the small streets make long shots tough, and reveal stuff as you go through that's not obvious at the start.
269. Looking up, crossing the Wenigermarkt.
270. Along the outside of the Krämerbrücke.
271. Timber supports on the underside.
272. Along the side of the bridge.
273. Through the "tunnels" under the bridge.
274. A river runs through it -- and somewhat higher than normal.
275. Shadows of new and old.
276. Künstlich und Hochkunst; this is along/inside the Krämerbrücke.
277. More of the actual buildings from 275.
278. More baroque sculpture further towards the Domplatz.
279. Modern heroes; everyone's favorite loaf.
280. Long front of the building in 278.
281. Across the plaza, closer to the main square.
282. A look up a narrow street.
283. More classic half-timber.
284. Across the plaza to the cathedrals. St. Mary, left, and St. Severi, right.
285. Full front of St. Severi.
286. Awesome Gothic arches hold St. Mary's up on the slope.
287. Up the steps to the door area.
288. Across the Domplatz. Just immense space, especially as close-packed as Erfurt's Altstadt is.
video6: Noon bells ring out across the plaza. This damn near burned out the battery, panning across.
289. Door of St. Mary's.
290. Along the side, with part of St. Severi's at the right of the frame.
291. Verses on the door.
292. Up towards the tower.
293. The city/RWE crest on the hill of the Peterburg. I didn't go up out of time constraints. This is the sole possible area for expansion of "time spent in Erfurt-Altstadt" as will be discussed later.
294. Along the far side of the Domplatz towards the cathedrals.
295. More houses on the south-east side of the plaza.
296. Old inn, now an Italian restaurant, on the south side.
297. Nice green space in the center; not a lot of this.
298. Across the plaza in front of the Ministerpräisidium, towards the railway station.
299. Goethe's basecamp in Erfurt.
300. Front of the Ministerpräisidium.
301. Long look on a narrow street.
302. A closer shot, further down.
303. This is really reaching ("Goethe and Schiller occasionally used to hang out here occasionally!"), in a town that doesn't really have to.
304. Iron statue of the Iron Chancellor. There was a Pimp My Ride joke here in the original notes, but make your own and see how stupid and terrible it is in English, let alone in modern German urban slang.
305. Back down Bahnhofstrasse.
The whole of this walk took less than 90 minutes, hotel door to hotel door, despite time out for lunch and grocery shopping. The Erfurt Altstadt is extremely small and close-packed; for normal people, a half-day here between Bamberg and Leipzig on a German tour should be sufficient to see pretty much everything. The convenience and cool sights make a visit an absolute must.
The above was not compensated; Erfurt is that good -- inside the river belt and Altstadt. The areas in the southeast and across the Stauffenbergallee have a very different feel to them, and should be navigated in groups with the head on a swivel, like a lot of residential districts in eastern Germany with low traffic and not a lot of people on the street. It may have been the post-festival freakout, or the forebodingly-oversized Second-Empire-vintage architecture on the outside of the outer Ring, deliberately built at scales not intended for human beings, but my spider senses were going off like nothing, and I do a fairly large amount of stupid and dangerous things. Nothing happened, of course, but ensuring nothing happens is the point of paranoia.
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