This tour week was special for us because Jeanette’s parents and sister got to come along with the class and enjoy all the history and travel with us! Before they joined our group, they toured Neuschwanstein Castle on their own, as we had done earlier. They came on Friday night, amidst us packing and checking the lobby for their arrival every 5 minutes. It was wonderful but almost strange to have formal parental figures in our midst again after the two months of being on our own. But it was great to see them and have them share some of our experience over there!
We travelled to many cities during this week seeing many historical places and places where Luther lived and worked. We travelled to Dresden (did a city tour and saw The Zwinger),
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| The Protestant Church in Dresden |
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| A view of the Zwinger at Sunset |
Berlin (our main stop here was The National History Museum, but we also saw where the Berlin Wall used to be and the Holocaust memorial),
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| Checkpoint Charlie |
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| The Brandenburg Gate |
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| Where the Berlin Wall used to run |
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| The Holocaust Memorial |
Wittenburg (where we saw the Castle Church-where Luther allegedly nailed the 95 Theses on the doors, basically starting the Reformation, the church Luther preached in, and Luther's house; we also had the first Ambex ping-pong tournament),
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| The Castle Church |
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| A night shot of the Castle Church |
Erfurt (we got to go to the first monastery Luther lived at, where part of the newer Luther movie was filmed-it was so peaceful and beautiful there!),
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| One of the walkways in the monastery |
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| The courtyard through a beautiful old window |
Eisenach (where we got to see J.S. Bach's house and Wartburg Castle- where Luther was "kidnapped" and translated the New Testament),
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| Wartburg Castle |
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| I'd say that's inspiration enough for Luther's "A Might Fortress is our God" |
Mainz (toured the Gutenberg Museum and saw a few of the original Gutenberg Bibles!),
Worms (a short trip where we saw the Cathedral there, the place where Luther stood his ground against the council demanding he recant, and a monument to the Reformers),
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| Worms Cathedral |
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| The Reformers Monument |
and Heidelberg (we ended our academic tour here, took our final for our class, wandered around the city- enjoying a local hot chocolate shop).
We made one more stop in Nurnberg where we said farewell to my (Jeanette's) family and headed off via train to the Ryanair airport in Memmingen to go to Sweden and Norway for the week.
My (Jeanette's) favourite part of the trip was Wittenburg and Erfurt. I loved the beauty of both places- walking through the hostel and seeing the nighttime view of the Castle Church in Wittenburg lighted up and the peaceful and quiet atmosphere of the monastery at Erfurt during the rainy day. I loved seeing history come alive through the teaching of Dr. Smith and actually seeing the places Luther lived and worked. The time of fellowship that we had as a group was, as always, wonderful and I think our group bonded even more on these trips. The friendships that had begun at the beginning of the semester were deepening and our group was becoming more and more of a family. I loved being able to have my family meet everyone and be able to experience a sliver of what I was experiencing. This week was my favourite academic tour week (or at least top two... out of three... ;)). Every week of this trip has a different special memory and it's very hard to rank them.
My (Chelsea) favorite parts of the week were Dresden and Eisenach. I loved the old city center, the beautiful Zwinger museum which we had a pitifully short time in. I also particularly loved going to a church service, partially translated by Dr. Smith. It was definitely a unique experience listening to Bach played during the service at various points and seeing several infant baptisms. In Eisenach, we were able to stay in a beautiful, old hostel full of character and dark wood door frames. The surrounding woods provided a beautiful setting for my pre-breakfast walks and Bible studies. There were even helpful signs scattered in the woods talking about some history of the area, which came in handy later when we visited the Wittenburg castle, because some of those same points of history came up again! Of course overall, pointing to this week in my trip and saying I was able to retrace some footsteps of Martin Luther is rather incredible. Dr. Smith shared his passion and knowledge so well with us, it will always be an extremely special week in my heart.
