We packed up, ate breakfast and took a taxi to the Southern Cross Train Station in Berlin with ease.
We checked the schedule and found our train was to arrive in just four minutes so we took an elevator upstairs and then another elevator down to the platform area. I had everything in my suitcase so it was a bit heavy. When the train arrived, I lifted it into the train with ease and found a place to set it behind a seat and sat there. Bob doesn't really like going backwards but it was okay.
The terrain quickly turned into farm homes, farms, single family homes, deciduous forest rather than planted fir trees that we saw on our trip to Lubbernau. Very pleasant. All along the way, we saw many electric windmills in operation.
At the trainstation in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg, we found a waiting taxi who delivered us to our hotel with ease. I angered the taxi drivers by helping them with my heavy suitcase because it is quite heavy to lift and maneuver. I'm supposed to let them suffer.
After checking into our hotel, we walk over to Luther's House, the former home of Martin Luther.
Inside, after paying the entry fee, we walk slowly through the three floors, examining all the many artifacts from his life and reading his story of how he started off a monk, studied religious thought, Greek, Latin and the early texts of the bible and how he took exception to the pilfering of the money collected by the church by everyone who came in contact with it. The monies were supposed to go to the building of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, but it left all the needy people in the country without aid and enriched the local Hohenzollern official who was skimming off the top. The monies were paid by the wealthy for forgiveness of their sins and so few were attending church.
Luther seems quite the firebrand. He basically returned thought about the scriptures and holiness back to how one treated others and lived a Christian life. The result of his sermons and the 75 texts he posted on the church door were that Rome's place in the local churches was replaced by civil authorities that collected the monies and used them to hire and pay the priests and to aid the poor and elderly to keep them from abject misery. He was aided by Cranach the Elder, an artist and publisher who took Luther's sermons and illustrated and published them. Luther's most important work was thought to be his translation of the bible into German (a move that many in Europe were doing as result of the budding drive for nationality).
Throughout the museum, you see his rooms, statues, many illustrations, texts and books and artifacts. Many are drawings of Luther. Luther's revision of church policies were meant to aid the church not cause a division but they were blown up as his belief that St. John's vision of the apocalypse was about to take place and that the Pope was the AntiChrist while the loyal Catholics likewise painted Luther as the AntiChrist. It caused a split across Germany into eastern Lutheran communities and western Catholic communites that continue to exist although there are both Lutheran and Catholic churches in the town. The Luther married one of the nuns he freed from the nunnery by marrying them off, added to the controversy and indeed by the time he died, he was quite as fat as the priests that he had ridiculed at the start.
The rest of town is quite easy to see.
There's a booklet for 5 Euros that explain the many ancient buildings, the post office, two churches, Cranach the Elder's businesses (he got quite rich) and his son's, and many more.
We found a lovely park at the end with ponds, trees and flowers but not many birds other than the usual.
We finished the night online at the hotel.
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