Wandering the Streets: Erfurt, Germany
My nephew Donnie's eldest child, Debbie, just started university this fall. She's attending the university in Ilmenau which is not far from Erfurt. I left Bayreuth and traveled north into the neighboring state of Thuringia to Ilmenau to see Debbie. After seeing her dorm room, we drove east to Erfurt for some sightseeing and dinner. This was a treat for me, as Thuringia was formerly part of the German Democratic Republic and I was unable to visit any of these places on trips to Germany when I was younger!
From Wikipedia: Erfurt is the capital and largest city in the state of Thuringia, central Germany. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringia Basin, within the wide valley of the Gera River. Together with neighboring cities Weimar and Jena it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 400,000 inhabitants. Erfurt's old town is one of the most intact medieval cities in Germany, having survived World War II with very little damage. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt)
The "Merchants Bridge" from below it.
We immediately found a parking garage and walked across the street to the Domplatz with the very imposing Erfurt Cathedral looming over it. With no specific goal in mind, we began wandering toward the river that runs through Erfurt as Debbie did say she'd heard from student friends that there was an interesting "merchants' bridge" crossing the river. We eventually found the interesting "Krämerbrücke" and spent the bulk of our time on and around it. The bridge crosses the Breitstrom, a branch of the Gera River, and is lined with inhabited, half timbered buildings on both sides. It and the Ponte Vecchio Bridge in Florence are the only remaining medieval bridges of this type! There is at each end of the bridge a church. St. Aegidien is at the eastern end and has a tower open to climb so Debbie and I did and were rewarded with a wonderful panorama of the red rooftops of Erfurt.
Except for some shots of an engaging wandering merchant dressed in costume of medieval time and selling wonderful rolls, I once again did not get many people shots and more "things" shots.
