fallen trees and forgotten men
By loading the map, you agree to Google's privacy policy.
Learn more
This post is about a 14km walk from Unkeroda to Eisenach. I struggle with some fallen trees in a forest, and I visit the Wartburg.
It felt good to put on my pants, fleece, jacket, wool hat, gloves, and shoes. All of them had been on the radiators all night, and they were nicely dry and warm.
wrong turn
The road out of Unkeroda led right into a forest. It wasn’t raining, so that was nice, but the ground was still wet and muddy, and walking was difficult, especially since all of it was uphill.
One time I took a wrong turn and ended up in a section of the way where a bunch of fallen trees were blocking the path. I went and inspected them: the first two or three looked as if I could maybe go around them somehow. But there were more after that. So I said fuck it and turned around.
Maybe this was one of the core lessons of The Longest Way: to be able to say fuck it and turn around sometimes.
the rainbow
It took a while to get to a point from where I could finally see the Wartburg. This medieval castle was arguably one of Germany’s most important places. Martin Luther had lived here in hiding after having been declared a heretic in Worms in the year 1521. Elizabeth of Thuringia had presumably stayed here as well. And on the map of present-day Germany, the Wartburg was pretty much exactly at the center.
I didn’t notice the rainbow right away. It sat right on top of the castle, sometimes more visible and sometimes less, depending on the color of the clouds behind it.
the way up
Some people appeared and told me to better not attempt to climb up to the castle with the Caboose. Too steep, they said, and too narrow. Also, there were apparently a few sets of stairs.
So I took a path that led down and then up again. One time, it led me to another fallen tree that was blocking the path, and so I sighed and did the shitty thing I didn’t feel like doing: I offloaded the Caboose, lifted her over the tree, and then I loaded her again.
Maybe this was another lesson of The Longest Way: sometimes there were some shitty things that just needed to be done without much fanfare.
Angstloch
There was a parking lot at the foot of the Wartburg. The attendant strongly advised me against taking the Caboose up to the castle (“too steep”), so I parked her there. I had arrived too late to take a proper tour anyway, so it was just going to be a short stroll on the premises.
The castle was interesting, especially the tower. There was a hole in the middle of the tower called the Angstloch (fear hole). Apparently, many German medieval castles had one, and people often associated them with solitary confinement as a form of punishment, when in most cases they had been apparently used for storage.
Not this one, though: in 1540, a local farmer called Fritz Erbe had been lowered into the hole as punishment for being an anabaptist.
It took him seven years to die.
pictures
the walk from Unkeroda to Eisenach:
the way up from Unkeroda
the wrong way
I turned around at this point
The Longest Way on the way to the Wartburg
Luther Pilgrims’ Way
mushrooms
the hills near the Wartburg
a rainbow over the Wartburg
I didn’t turn around here
the Caboose couldn’t come up to the Wartburg
the Wartburg
on top of the tower of the Wartburg
the Angstloch in the Wartburg tower
Fritz Erbe was held in this hole for more than a decade in the 1500s
inside the Wartburg
enter Eisenach
Christmas market being set up in Eisenach
my hotel in Eisenach