JS Bach in Germany

Eisenach - the old town is preserved and offers a Luther and a Bach museum. The highlight is Wartburg castle (World Heritage Site), which is a must see. Ohrdruf - nothing special, but close to the Thuringian Forest, which is quite nice. Lüneburg - beautiful preserved old town, highly recommended. Weimar - World Heritage Site with a beautiful old town, castles and gardens, and places related to Bach, Luther, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Nietzsche, Liszt, the Bauhaus etc.. A must see. Arnstadt - one of those cute, small Thuringian towns, good for a few hours Lübeck - World Heritage Site and former head of the Hanseatic League, a must see. Mühlhausen - provincial town with a mostly preserved old town surrounded by mostly preserved town walls. Probably a pleasant surprise. Related to Thomas Müntzer. Halle - hit hard by the economic downturn after reunification, but the old town is mostly preserved and quite diverse. The city where Händel comes from. Köthen - provincial, preserved town without highlights. A must see however is the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm, a wonderful English landscape park built by the dukes of Anhalt, who employed Bach.
Leipzig - the rich sister of Halle, but less diverse. The old town is partly preserved, and the city is divided from north to south by a beautiful park. You could try to hear the Thomanerchor, who sings 3x a week at the Thomaskirche. I would fly into Hamburg, rent a car, drive from north to south and fly out of Frankfurt. Between Lüneburg and Mühlhausen I would try to spend a few days in the Harz mountains, which offer some of the most beautiful German towns (Goslar, Quedlinburg, Wernigerode). In Thuringia I would add Erfurt to the list, a wonderful preserved city with one of Germanys biggest old towns, and use this city as a base to explore Thuringia.

Splendid, encyclopedic reply by Martin. We went to about half of these a few years ago. There is much to see besides the tracks of the Bach family. Note that in many cases, like the birth-house in Eisenach, the actual buildings have disappeared or been replaced. You can easily spend three days or more in the larger cities, like Leipzig and Weimar. Have you already been to Dresden? And there are non-Bach sites you might want to give high priority to, like Buchenwald. On the lighter side, I'd mention the fine art museum in Leipzig and the UNESCO WHS, Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz.

The Bach museums is Eisenach and Leipzig are both worthwhile. If I remember correctly, I believe the Eisenach Bach museum is located in a house that probably belonged to the Bach family, but it isn't definite that JS Bach was born in that house. The Bach museum in Leipzig is located in a house that belonged to friends of JS Bach. I believe the Bach residence in Leipzig no longer exists.

Thanks so much, everybody. Wow - what an answer, Martin. My wife and I are now quite excited by this. No, we've never been anywhere in the old East. I hope we can get into Potsdam. I learned my German in Koeln and refined it in Bayern so I hope I can make myself understood in that part of the country ;-)

I've only visited Eisenach and Potsdam on your list. Definately make some time for the Wartburg while you're in Eisenach. They offer German tours all day, but only a few English tours. You may enjoy it more if you preread a little about St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the legend of Tannhäuser and Wolfram von Eschenbach. PS- I like your references to Saxe-Eisenach and Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Did you know, I grew up in Province of Pennsylvania?

Leipzig is definitely THE place to go to! Beautiful city and of course over 20 years of Bach's life. Check out the schedule for concerts at the Thomas Church ahead of time. Tickets are quite affordable but sell out very fast. http://www.thomaskirche.org/r-calendar-of-events.html

>"I hope we can get into Potsdam." In case you visit Potsdam again make sure to see the other parks too (New Garden, Babelsberg, Glienicke, Peacock Island); Sanssouci is just one of them. IMHO the most beautiful area of Potsdam is around the spy bridge, where you are surrounded by nothing but lakes and parks. Babelsberg is my favourite park. Completely without tourists, with a wonderful view from the palace to the spy bridge.

What is Potsdam's spy bridge called auf deutsch, please?