A town of timeless appeal: Weimar

The names of great minds are legion in Weimar: Goethe and Schiller, Herder and Wieland, Nietzsche, Fürnberg, Liszt, Bach, Cornelius, Gropius, Feininger, Klee, Itten. This is a pearl within the German and European history of ideas, music and architecture – and of history in general. Weimar Classicism and the Bauhaus are beacons of the extraordinarily rich cultural life that is abundantly and harmoniously manifest in the town.

Weimar Classicism, and other reasons for visiting.

The Classical Weimar ensemble is testimony to a major cultural epoch: Weimar Classicism, the enlightened, courtly – and middle-class – culture of the period around 1800. The adoption of Weimar as a UNESCO World Heritage site was based both on the art-historical significance of the town's buildings and parks from the cultural flowering of the Classical Weimar period and on the role of the city as an intellectual centre in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. For all these reasons and more, Jahrhundert begründet – und dem ist nichts hinzuzufügen. Weimar was one of the European Capitals of Culture in 1999. Goethes Geburtstag sich in diesem Jahr zum 250. And because that year was also the 250th anniversary of Goethe's birth, Weimar became a rendezvous for travellers from across Europe and all over the world.

Generally, people come to Weimar to broaden their cultural horizons. But other aspects that might make a visit even more interesting include the large number of bars – more per capita than Berlin – the hearty cuisine and great beers such as the Schwanenblond , which has been brewed since 1533.

A story of success: Goethe in Weimar

An important reminder of Classical Weimar is the baroque house on Frauenplan that was Goethe's home for almost 50 years. Today, the house looks largely as it did during the final years of his life. Goethe's summer house in the park on the river Ilm was a gift from Duke Carl August to tie the poet to Weimar – and it was always to remain his sanctuary in the midst of nature. Goethe's talent for overseeing architectural projects is substantiated by the Roman House, which was Weimar's first neo-classical building and is within sight of the summer house. Friedrich Schiller's name is also inseparable from Weimar and he spent the last few years of his life in the town house on what was then the Weimar esplanade. Nowadays the house is furnished with period furniture, some of which is original, while the permanent exhibition entitled 'Schiller in Thuringia' gives an insight into his life and work. Franz Liszt, the brilliant virtuoso, also took up residence in Weimar, to the extent that his ambitious touring schedule permitted. He lived in the former court gardener's house, now a Liszt museum, at the entrance to the park.

Bauhaus, liberal traditions – and the other side of Weimar

The Bauhaus museum's 300-plus exhibits provide an insight into the work of the State Bauhaus. The Bauhaus, founded in Weimar in April 1919, is still considered by many to be Germany's most successful cultural export of the 20th century. Jahrhunderts. It also fits with the town's liberal, progressive heritage that the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (whose capital was Weimar), was the first to be granted a constitution in 1816 and that the first republic on German soil was established here in 1919 – the Weimar Republic. It is all the more inconceivable that it was within sight of this place, where Germany presented itself so proudly as a nation of culture, that Buchenwald, the scene of 50,000 murders, could have been built by that very same nation. If you come to Weimar, you should also come to Buchenwald – and pay your respects to the memorial site. Only then will you have seen Weimar in its entirety.