Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [228]
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Orientation & Information
The hilltop Schloss Friedenstein and its gardens take up about half of Gotha’s city centre, with the Altstadt to the north and the Hauptbahnhof to the south. It’s a brisk 15-minute walk from the Hauptbahnhof to the Neumarkt and Hauptmarkt central squares. In the latter, you’ll find the tourist office ( 5078 5712; www.gotha.de; Hauptmarkt 33; 9am-6pm Mon-Fri, 10am-3pm Sat year-round, plus 10am-2pm Sun May-Sep).
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Sights
SCHLOSS FRIEDENSTEIN
This horseshoe-shaped palace ( 823 414; www.stiftungfriedenstein.de; adult/concession €7/3; 10am-5pm Tue-Sun May-Oct, to 4pm Nov-Apr) is the largest surviving early baroque palace in Germany. Much of the compound is now the Schlossmuseum (Palace Museum), a glorious assembly of art collections displayed in lavish baroque and neoclassical apartments. The picture gallery features priceless works by Rubens, Tischbein, Cranach and other old masters as well as the radiant Gothaer Liebespaar (Pair of Lovers) painted around 1480 by an anonymous artist known only as Master of the Housebook.
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TRAM THROUGH THE TREES
Thuringia’s most unusual ride has to be the Thüringerwaldbahn ( 4310; www.waldbahn-gotha.de). Starting out as ordinary city tram 4 at Gotha’s Hauptbahnhof, it curves around the city ring road, crawls through some unlovely suburbs and then just keeps on going – like a local version of the Hogwarts Express – straight into the fairy-tale world of the Thuringian forest, as far as Tabarz.
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Climb the stairs to compare the exuberantly stucco-ornamented Festsaal (Festival Hall) to the less flashy neoclassical wing whose sculpture collection includes a famous Renaissance work by Conrad Meit called Adam und Eva. The Kunstkammer is a curio cabinet jammed with exotica like engraved ostrich eggs and a cherry pit engraved with the face of Ernst I.
The Schlosskirche (Palace Church) occupies the northeastern corner, while the southwest tower contains the stunning Ekhof-Theater, one of the oldest baroque theatres in Europe, dating from the late 1700s. Unfortunately, it only hosts performances during the popular Ekhof Festival (www.ekhof-festival.de, in German) in July and August. Upstairs is a regional history and folklore museum with the usual hodgepodge of exhibits. Schloss tickets are also good for the Museum der Natur (Natural History Museum; Parkallee 15; same hours as palace) in an imposing building on the edge of the Gothaer Park.
Individual tickets to the regional history museum, natural history museum or the Ekhof-Theater are available for €3 (concession €2) each.
With prior reservation, you can also take a tour of the eerie Kasematten (€3.50; 1pm Sat & Sun), a warren of defensive underground passages deep below the palace.
HAUPTMARKT
Hauptmarkt is dominated by the picturesque Rathaus (town hall) with its colourful Renaissance facade and 35m-tall tower (€1; 11am-6pm Apr-Oct, 11am-4pm Nov-Mar). It started out as a storage house in 1567, later served as ducal pad of Ernst I while Schloss Friedenstein was under construction, and only became a town hall in 1665. The 14th-century Wasserkunst (cascading fountain) originally supplied the city with water but is now purely decorative; the pump is deep inside the baroque Lucas-Cranach-Haus at No 17. Other houses on Hauptmarkt also reward exploration. If the legs are tired, a picnic lunch in the Orangerie of the Schloss is a nice way to enjoy these luscious surroundings.
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Sleeping
Café Suzette ( 856 755; www.cafe-suzette.com; Bebelstrasse 8; s/d €30/60; ) Small but friendly, this cute little Pension has minimum-frills rooms above a cafe and cake shop, five minutes from the Hauptbahnhof. They even rent out bikes in case you want to work off the pudge factor of