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Turmcafé ( 881 036; Schloss Elisabethenburg; food €2.50-6; 11am-6pm Tue-Sat, 11am-5pm Sun; ) Over the top in all ways, this baroque cafe high in the Schloss is a lovely stop for coffee and cake or a light meal.

Kutscherstube ( 4570; Georgstrasse 1; mains €8-16; lunch & dinner; ) Inside the Sächsischer Hof, this place is an atmosphere-laden port of call for hearty Thuringian cuisine. The dumplings are the star of the menu, of course, and pair beautifully with the uniformly excellent meat dishes.

Posthalterei ( 4570; Georgstrasse 1; 3-/4-/5-/6-/7-course menu €35/44/54/64/69; dinner Tue-Sat, lunch Sun; ) Also in the Sächsischer Hof, this gourmet restaurant occupies the building where postal coaches once parked. The cooking is truly wizardly, blending Asian and Mediterranean flavours into what is essentially regional fare.

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Getting There & Away

Meiningen is directly linked to Erfurt (€16.70, 1½ hours) and to Eisenach (€11.30, one hour) by the Süd Thüringen Bahn (www.sued-thueringen-bahn.de). Coming from Eisenach, drivers should take the B19; from Erfurt, the A71.

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THE SAALE VALLEY

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JENA

03641 / pop 102,000

Jena enjoys a lovely setting on the Saale River, flanked by muscular limestone hills and blessed with a climate mild enough for orchids and vines to thrive. A university town since 1558, it may not be as pretty as Weimar, some 20-odd kilometres to the west, but it did attract its own share of 18th-century cultural giants, Schiller and Goethe among them. However, it’s really Jena’s pedigree as a city of science that sets it apart from other Thuringian towns. This is, after all, the 19th-century birthplace of optical precision technology, pioneered by Carl Zeiss, Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott. Today, several museums and the world’s oldest public planetarium attest to this legacy. Although it bears the scars of WWII and GDR aesthetics, Jena’s still a beguiling town, with some 20,000 students injecting a large dose of liveliness. Outside the city centre, you’ll find lovely art-nouveau neighbourhoods, challenging trails leading to glorious viewpoints and the best nightlife in eastern Thuringia.

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Orientation

Jena’s main point of orientation is the soaring JenTower, which sits right next to the Markt, the tourist office and the Wagnergasse pub mile. Pretty much all major attractions are within a five- or 10-minute walk from here. Jena has two train stations. Long-distance trains arrive at Jena-Paradies, a 10-minute walk south of the Markt. Regional trains from Erfurt or Weimar stop at the tiny Jena-West station. To get to the centre from Jena-West, turn left onto Westbahnhofstrasse and follow it to Kollegienstrasse, turn right and you’ll be at the Markt in a minute.

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Information

Bagels & Beans ( 219 291; Leutragraben 2-4; per min €0.04, wi-fi per 30min €1.50; 8am-8.30pm Mon-Fri, 9am-7pm Sat, 8am-6pm Sun) Internet and wi-fi just east of the JenTower.

Police ( 810; Am Anger 30)

Post office (Engelplatz 8; 9am-6.30pm Mon-Fri, 9am-1pm Sat)

Sparkasse ( 6790; Ludwig-Weimar-Gasse 5) Bank with ATM.

Tourist office ( 498 050; www.jena.de; Markt 16; 9am-7pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat, 10am-3pm Sun) In Jena’s oldest building, dating from 1384. Sells the JenaCard (€8.90) for 48 hours of public transport and free and discounted tours and admissions.

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Sights

JENTOWER

The 128m-tall cylindrical JenTower (lift €3; 11am-midnight) sticks out from Jena’s silhouette like the tall kid in your third-grade picture. In the early 1970s, the medieval Eichplatz was razed to make room for this concrete behemoth, built as a Zeiss research facility. It proved unsuitable, and the building languished for some time before getting a facelift and reopening with an observation platform and the upmarket Scala restaurant Click here. Down at street level is the Neue Mitte shopping mall.

AROUND THE MARKT

Despite the forces of