Germany, day 16: Lutherstadt Wittenberg

We checked out of our hotel in Berlin very early. To give you some idea, breakfast service began at 6:15, and the professors were to call anyone who was not downstairs at that time. Like I said, it was early.

Why did we get up so early? We wanted to go to Wittenberg, the home town of Martin Luther, the instigator of the Protestant Reformation. In order to worship in the Castle Church, to whose door Luther allegedly nailed his 95 Theses, we had to catch a train from Berlin to Wittenberg. These trains are infrequent; Wittenburg is not a big town, and so there is not too much demand for trains to it. On the train charts, it is known as "Lutherstadt Wittenberg", or "Wittenberg, Luther's City," in case we wondered why we were going there again.

As we had checked out of our Berlin hotel, we needed to carry all of our luggage with us. Luckily, we had enough time to store our things in lockers at the museum of Luther's house. This was especially good for the first Professor and his family, all of whom were leaving for the Netherlands later that day, necessitating that the have all their things with them in suitcases.


This is the famed door(way) of the Castle Church, where Luther is believed to have nailed his theses. As the picture tells, the door is made of brass, which is rather nail-proof to the average monk. Apparently, the Luther-era doors had been destroyed in a war of some sort, and have been replaced by a wealthy noble who had brass doors cast and adorned with the Theses. These doors are only opened after a service on Sunday mornings.

What is this? A handle from the coffin of Martin Luther. It's in the museum, and it's kind of funny. It's a relic to Luther, and the visitation of relics seeded into the belief in purgatory and indulgences, two of the things the Catholic Church taught that Luther thought to be in error.

A bust of Martin Luther is escorted by none other than myself. This is in the upper floor of the museum, which contains a great many images of Luther. The historical information about Luther's mission is in the lower floor.

This is an indulgence. The picture is not terribly clear, but the writing in Latin, so most people couldn't read it anyway. For those who don't know, the indulgences were Luther's main gripe, and they combined purgatory and fund-raising into one coherent process.

We also visited the City Church, where Luther would also lecture and preach. There is a lot of art in both the Castle and City Churches.

We headed back to the Wittenberg train station, where we bade the one professor and his family farewell, and waited for a train that would, after a few transfers, bring us back home. We went through Hamburg on the way, where there was a lot of confusion about which platform we had to use. The originally-planned platform was occupied by another train that was not leaving, so our train ended up on the platform next to it, thought the digital sign on the platform did not reflect this for quite some time.

We made it back, some of us with souvenirs, and prepared for another week of class. Funny, how we never did homework while we were away...