"The old part of Erfurt is just beautiful " a Erfurt Travel Page by christine.j

I've updated one tip only, the one about the doorknocker at the cathedral.

I'm not a beer drinker and my koala usually doesn't like it either, but this black beer here is just too good ! It's sweet and just perfect when you're tired after a day of sight seeing.But you have to be careful, sweet or not sweet, it's still beer and contains alcohol. Some people say even more than the usual light beer, I don't know. Anyway, we enjoyed it!

Erfurt is the capital of the state of Thuringia. It has been an important trading place for centuries, as it used to be at the crossing of two old trade routes, one leading from France to Poland and another leading from Italy to the sea in the North.
Today you can see half-timbered houses built on bridges, you can sit and enjoy a coffee on the bridges in one of the many cafés and you see grand old houses around the city centre.
Neigbouring Weimar is more famous, but in my mind Erfurt is the more beautiful of the two. Even though more and more tourists have been coming to this beautiful town, it's still a lot less crowded than Weimar.

Walking through Erfurt I just love to look at the old houses. Many of them have small paintings or small stuccos above the doors or at the corners.I was told this was a way of showing how much money a family had. Society was so strictly structured, that if someone had made a lot money in trading, they still couldn't just" move up " in society, if they had been born in a lower class.
And most status symbols were constricted by the classes. But if you owned a house, you could add as many ornaments as you wanted to.
I don't know if this is the reason for the many colourful houses in Erfurt; maybe the citizens simply liked it.
This painting shows a fish wearing a crown, seemingly talking to a bird.
I have no idea if there's any story behind it, but it looks like something of a fairytale.