From the Cathedral Hill we make our way into Old Town Erfurt via the the major street linking the Cathedral Plaza with the the Fish Square (Fishmarkt), the major central square in downtown Erfurt. It is quite a busy street which has a tram running down the middle quite often with minimal noise while the sidewalks are quite narrow and you have to step onto the tracks quite often. This does not seem that safe especially given the many beautiful buildings that we want to admire instead of wondering whether we are going to be hit by a tram but we survive.
The first major attraction on the way is the All Saints Church and we look forward to visiting it. To our surprise the main area is behind a glass screen protecting the altar and the main section of the church to be visited. At least we can take a few photos before exiting, quite weird and not sure why it was so protected.
The houses on both sides of the street are quite impressive and we keep our eyes always looking up to see the renovated facades. We especially like the timberhouses which to us are typical German.
Slowly we make our way to the central square of Erfurt and we know we are getting close when we see the Erfurt City Hall, it is rare in a medieval city for the City Hall to be located somewhere else and not in the central square.
And Erfurt is not an exception, the City Hall is anchoring the Fischmarkt, considered the central square of the city. What is different from other plazas is that the tram is running right through it making it more dangerous to explore and also photobombing some of our shots.
We explore along the plaza for a while enjoying the many impressive buildings from the heyday of Erfurt. Which is not to say Erfurt isn’t still important, it is after all the capital of Thuringia one of the German Lander (states).
One of the things we find quite fun while exploring the city is the many children related sculptures. It seems that Erfurt is one of the centers of children productions in Germany because of the children television channel Kika which is based in Erfurt and many of the characters from their shows are exhibited throughout the city.
After exploring the Kramerbrucke and the other side of the River we return in the Old City and decide to search for the Old Synagogue, the only Unesco WHS in the downtown area. It is surprisingly difficult to find it given the many alleys and narrow streets but finally we make it. We decide to visit it only from the outside as we have limited time and are quite hungry already and need to eat lunch.
We continue via the narrow streets arriving at a section which is competely blocked by a couple cars and a group of people but with a bit of persuasion we are allowed to pass.
And then we finally arrive at what we were looking for. This is the back entrance for the Zum güldenen Rade restaurant that we saw as we entered the downtown area. It is also the most famous restaurant here for Thuringian specialties and that is what we want to try out.
We are lucky that we arrive outside the normal lunch hour as there are only a few tables inside. It looks quite cozy and not like the major restaurant in Leipzig we visited the day prior.
The menu is also quite extensive but we want Thuringian specialties so we already know what we are going to buy.
While we wait for the food we decide to visit the facilities and that is already an adventure as you have to descend into the cellar and find the toilets between other exhibits related to the history of the restaurant. Quite fun actually.
The foof when it arrives it quite special and filling and now we are ready to continue on towards Trier, our destination for the day.
But first we do some additional exploration on the way back looking for interesting buildings throughout the Old City as we slowly make our way back to the parking lot. And then it is only a few more hours to Trier where we will spend three full days exploring.
