Eisenach, Germany: the Wartburg town of Luther and Bach in the Thuringian Forest

On a wooded crag above Eisenach stands the Wartburg, one of the most storied castles in Germany. St. Elizabeth of Hungary lived here as a young landgravine; minstrels are said to have duelled in song in its hall, the contest Wagner later set to music; and in 1521 a fugitive Martin Luther, hidden under the alias Junker Jörg, translated the New Testament into German within its walls - a turning point for both the Reformation and the German language. A Thuringian town of around 42,000 people at the north-western foot of the Thuringian Forest, Eisenach sits about 50 kilometres west of the state capital Erfurt and roughly 150 kilometres north-east of Frankfurt.

The castle, founded around 1067 and rebuilt in the nineteenth century in romantic Neo-Romanesque style, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 - the first German castle to be so listed - and later helped inspire Ludwig II's Neuschwanstein.

A cradle of music and reform

Down in the town, Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 into a long line of musicians; the Bachhaus, opened in 1906, was the first museum anywhere devoted to him. Nearby, the timber-framed Lutherhaus recalls the years the young Luther spent as a schoolboy with the Cotta family, and the Georgenkirche on the market square saw both Luther preach and the Bach family baptised at its font.

Between forest and history

Eisenach was an early capital of the landgraves of Thuringia and later a small ducal residence, and its market square still gathers handsome civic buildings around St. George's church. The Rennsteig, the celebrated ridge trail through the Thuringian Forest, runs close by, so the town pairs its weight of history with easy walks into the hills.