Weimar Ilm Park Walking Tour

The town church of Saints Peter and Paul was built from 1498 to 1500 as a late Gothic hall church, with three aisles of equal height under one roof. Protestant services have been held here since 1525, and Martin Luther preached in this church. In February 1945 bombs hit the roof and the vaults, and on June 14, 1953, the church was consecrated again. Thomas Mann gave the prize money from the Goethe Prize, which he received in Weimar in 1949, towards the rebuilding. People call it the Herderkirche, the Herder Church, after Johann Gottfried Herder. He served here as general superintendent and preacher from 1776 until his death in 1803. His grave lies in the western part of the nave, under a cast-iron slab with his motto "Licht, Liebe, Leben", which means light, love, life. Duchess Anna Amalia was also buried here in 1807, at her own wish. At the front, in the choir, stands the Cranach Altar. The three-panelled altarpiece is dated 1555 and was completed by Lucas Cranach the Younger. Christ hangs on the cross in the centre. Beside the cross stand Martin Luther with an open Bible and Lucas Cranach the Elder, the painter's father. A stream of blood from the wound in Christ's side lands right on Cranach's head. The altarpiece puts the teaching of the Reformation into a single picture. Since 1998 the church has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Classical Weimar". For the next stop, walk about fifteen minutes south to the Historic Cemetery.

In the Historic Cemetery, right behind the Fürstengruft, the ducal burial vault, stands a small church with gilded onion domes. It was built from 1860 to 1862 as the burial chapel of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, a daughter of Tsar Paul the First of Russia. In 1804 she had married Carl Friedrich, heir to the Weimar throne, in Saint Petersburg, and in November of that year the couple made their entry into Weimar. Maria Pavlovna stayed Orthodox all her life and wanted a Russian church above her grave. She also wanted to lie beside her husband in the Fürstengruft. To make both possible, several cartloads of earth were brought to Weimar from the area around Saint Petersburg, and the chapel was built on that soil. Her coffin stands in the underground passage between the Fürstengruft and the chapel, right next to her husband's. The plans came from the grand ducal chief architect Ferdinand Streichhan, and the church was consecrated to Saint Mary Magdalene on November 24, 1862. Weimar's Russian Orthodox congregation still holds services here. Maria Pavlovna was also a patron of music. In 1842 she brought Franz Liszt to Weimar as court music director and paid for it herself. To reach his later home, walk about seven minutes northeast to the edge of the Ilm Park.

The Liszt House on Marienstrasse was first built as the court gardener's house at the edge of the Park an der Ilm. It dates from the end of the eighteenth century and was remodelled in 1819 by Clemens Wenzeslaus Coudray. Before Liszt arrived, the painters Friedrich Preller and Hermann Wislicenus had their studio here. Franz Liszt already knew Weimar well. From 1848 to 1861 he had lived in the Villa Altenburg as court music director and had made the town a centre of new music. In 1869 he came back at the invitation of Grand Duke Carl Alexander, and until his death in 1886 he spent almost every summer in the apartment upstairs. Here he taught young pianists from many countries without charging them, and he regularly held concerts at home. The music room, the study and the bedroom are still furnished as they were in Liszt's day. In the music room stands his Bechstein grand piano, and next to it Beethoven's death mask, which belonged to Liszt. As early as 1887, one year after his death, the apartment opened as a memorial. The Park an der Ilm begins right across the street. Go in and follow the path down to the river.

The Park an der Ilm, the Ilm Park, stretches over forty-eight hectares along the river at the edge of the old town. Duke Carl August and Johann Wolfgang Goethe laid it out together. In 1776 the duke gave Goethe a small house with a garden on the slope opposite, today known as Goethe's Garden House. From 1778 the first parts were laid out in the English style. Instead of geometric beds as in a baroque garden, they have winding paths, meadows, clumps of trees and views across the Ilm. Goethe lived in the garden house until he moved to the Frauenplan in 1782, and even after that he often came back here to work. Further south on the slope stands the Roman House, the Römisches Haus. It was begun in 1791 to plans by Johann August Arens and completed in 1797. Carl August used it as a retreat and for official occasions. With its columns, it looks like an ancient temple. When Carl August died in 1828, the park was largely complete. Since 1998 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Classical Weimar". The tour ends here. If you still have time, cross the Ilm to Goethe's Garden House. From there it is about ten minutes' walk to the old town.