House of the Purple Worms: Franz Liszt House and Friederich Schiller Home

I got up failry early and decided to see if I could squeee in two more museums on my 24 ticket. This would mean heading to the Franz Liszt House first - racing through it and then trying to not get lost so that I could get into the Schiller House (the thing I most wanted to see in Weimar) before my ticket expired.

Of course we all know about the best of intentions. I got off later than Ihad hoped and of course I got lost. There were however many fascinating things to see on the way into the city.

There was this one red building that had a couple of signs on it.

This one is a memorial to those who died as sacrifices to the Stalinistic Terror.

This sign honors the unforgotten who gave their lives to fight against fascist terroristic justice.

Nearby is Buchenwaldplatz with this neglected corner and statue of Ernst Thalmann. Thalmann was the leader of the KPD during the Weimarer Republic and was imprisoned by the Gestapo and put in solitary confinement from 1933 until 1944 when Hitle gave orders to have him shot in Buchenwald.

This little house had a pretty painting near the door.

Anyway, I rushed to where I thought the Liszt house was and of course I got lost because I had over shot it. I didn't even remember to take a picture, so here is one borrowed from the Internet. I did race through the museum and think the staff was a bit appalled that I wouldn't even bother to listen to the music. (I told them I knew it already (and certainly I would have listened if I had had more time.)

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but here is the garden behind the house (Isn't that just like me to remember to shoot the garden, but to forget about the house!?)

Again I found a couple of pictures on the web. This is the main sitting room and these curtains or of a certain national type of cloth (I've forgotten now which).

Evidently Liszt would surprise people by walking around in a priests cassock. He took the tonsure in 1865 after the death of two of his children and actually got orders in all kinds of things including acolyte, exorcism and lector.

In the listening room they had clips from two LIszt films. One of them was the fan scene from Lisztomania. I asked them what they thought of the film and the museum Beamte said she thought it was a bit kitschy! (a bit?)

I raced back out and headed towards the Schillerhouse to use up the last minutes of my ticket. Of course there were still intriguing things along the way. Here's the home of the Gutenberg press.

Then there was this little sign indicating that Goethe and Christianne Vulpius had lived in this house.

I made it to the Schillerhaus with 10 minutes to spare!

This historic site starts off with the museum and rooms about the different periods of Schillers short but brilliant life. There were many fascinating images, but I will only put in a few here. There was something compelling about seeing Schillers handwriting in person.

This is an image from his play on Wallensteins Death.

The house had not had its effects preserved, because Schiller was not as famous as Goethe and didn't live in Weimar for so long. They have put together hypothetical furnishings, but for the most part the rooms are not the way they were in Schiller's time and we don't really have much left from him.

Here is the kitchen.

Here is a lovely little print of the Schiller house in 1876.

Schiller had money problems and didn't earn enough money to pay his bills. Goethe saw to it that he not only got a raise, but later helped him get ennobled. This opened houses to him that he was not able to visit up until that time. This is his coat of arms.

Images from the museum.

In one of the rooms they had an embroidery rck set up and this very fine embroidery was on it.

This was Schiller's wife, Charlotte's bed. Evidently Schiller was in love with two sisters and couldn't make up his mind ultimately settling for the younger daughter and not the older daughter Caroline.