Erfurt Visit

Was there for the Christmas Market pre Covid. We stayed at Pension Harmonie (Angelika Flemming). No breakfast, but nice. Good public transportation, trams and bus and easy to get around. We spent most of the time in and around the old city center. Some nice old café. We were in search of a good Stollen, and travelled to several bakeries in the city reported to have the best. With more time Weimar and Jena are not far away, and the battlefields of Jena–Auerstedt.

Erfurt is awesome. For hotel, I highly recommend Hotel Domizil. It's a small hotel right on the central square of the town (Domplatz). The hotel is run by a mother-son team. The son is a chef and makes an amazing breakfast (or at least he did pre-pandemic). https://www.hotel-domizil-erfurt.de/startseite.html

Erfurt has many sites to see. An interesting (though a little depressing) museum is the Erinnerungsort Topf & Söhne. Topf & Söhne was a German company that made many, many things. During WWII, one of those things was ovens for Auschwitz. The museum explores how a "normal" company with "normal" owners (who actually shielded some Jews and communists) became involved in genocide. https://www.topfundsoehne.de/ts/de/index.html

Anger One is a development that was originally a Jewish department store that was Aryanized during Nazi times.

The Rick Steves walk is really good.

The Alte Synagogue is an old, old synagogue that escaped destruction by the Nazis because it had been converted into a warehouse. It is definitely worth seeing.

The merchants bridge. The gardens. The architecture. Sitting outside enjoying a meal. Erfurt is a great place.

Oh yeah... Erfurt is also the site of the first visit to East Germany by a West German chancellor. Willy Brandt visited in 1970. There was an enormous turnout of enthusiastic East Germans to see him, much to the chagrin of East Germany's leaders -- the people gathered on what is now Willy Brandt Platz. Brandt gave a subtle wave to the crowd from a building on the Platz to acknowledge their presence while trying to avoid embarrassing the East Germany government with an overly-enthusiastic response to the crowd.

A few years ago we made an unplanned stop in Erfurt while driving, and chose it primarily because they had a garage. The Mercure Hotel Erfurt Altstadt was comfortable, well located for walking to historic sights and offered a gigantic breakfast.. this was pre-Covid. We were pleasantly surprised and wished we had more than one night. Safe travels.

We were there in December. We arrived by train and stayed at the Best Western Plus Hotel Excelsior a few blocks from the station. It is a slightly older hotel on the second floor (with a ground floor elevator.) The room was large, the people nice and the breakfast great. There were little choices for a nice restaurant near the hotel so we ate in the old town. This town was certainly off the beaten track for English speaking tourist, but we had no trouble with the hotel or restaurant employees understanding us. There was quite a bit of construction around the covered bridge, but if you go a little upstream, you’ll get great photos of it.

Are any of you gardeners? The EGA Gardens are right in town and are spectacular! You could easily spend 1/2 a day there. Check it out. I was on a solo trip in September and found the beauty and variety so late in the season to be fabulous. Absolutely worth the admission.
Sara

re: Mercure Hotel Erfurt Altstadt @Denny
This hotel is not air conditioned. I was there in mid-September a few years ago and it was uncomfortably hot.

Valuable information Going. I had no idea as our visit was outside of AC season.

"...Weimar and Jena and the battlefields of Jena-Auerstädt are not far away"

The "1806 Museum" on that battle is located in a suburb of Jena, Jena-Cospeda which you can access by bus from the main train station , Jena-Paradies. This is where having a rental car is much more advantageous if your purpose is to examine the twin battle sites.