Historic Cities · Germany
Erfurt through the ages
Erfurt (German pronunciation: [ˈɛʁfʊʁt] ) is the capital and largest city of the Central German state of Thuringia, with a population of around 216,000. It lies in the wide valley of the River Gera, in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest, and in the middle of a line of the six largest Thuringian cities, stretching from Eisenach in the west, via Gotha, Erfurt,
Erfurt in 1505
Luther's Erfurt
Erfurt in 1505 is a prosperous late‑medieval woad city whose spires and steep gables rise above the Gera; its university draws scholars and bursae into the narrow streets. This walk moves from the abbey hill and cathedral down through the market quarters, across the bridge of shops and along the mill channels to the Augustinian friary where many young scholars, including Martin Luther, found shelter.
The skyline is a compact cluster of stone towers and slender Gothic spires above a sea of red‑tiled roofs and steep timbered gables. Streets are narrow, cobbled and shadowed; façades are painted or exposed timber, peppered with shop signs. The Gera threads the town with shallow mill channels and low stone bridges; dyehouses and woad vats supply a recurring wash of deep blue. Scale is human: crowded alleys, open market squares and dense rows of merchant yards.
The route: 15 streets, squares and views
Petersberg View → Petersberg Abbey → Domberg (Cathedral Hill) → Domplatz Stairs → Erfurt Cathedral and St Severus → Domplatz Square → Fischmarkt → Krämerbrücke (Merchants' Bridge) → Old Synagogue Quarter → Gera Mill Channels → …
Step inside, 8 interiors
High Choir with Wolfram Candelabrum · Severus Stone Nave · Merchant's Shop Parlour · Miller's Wheelhouse · Woad Vaulted Storehouse · Collegium Maius Lecture Hall · Georgenburse Common Hall · Augustinian Chapter Room
Planned from the Wikipedia record: Erfurt.
From the archive
Erfurt on paper: the old town as it was mapped.
A period plan or bird's-eye view of the old town, drawn between 1500 and 1850 — the streets this page's reconstructions walk. Public domain, with its source named.
Erdfordia (Erfurt), engraved city prospect from Braun & Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum
Panoramic prospect showing Erfurt's walled skyline with cathedral spires and numerous church steeples, towers and the river in the foreground.
Public domain (plate dated 1645)
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