Fagus Factory in Alfeld and Wartburg Castle

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Fagus Factory in Alfeld

   Stand across the railway tracks and look at the Fagus works, and you are looking at one of the buildings where modern architecture started. In 1911 the shoe-last maker Carl Benscheidt hired a young Walter Gropius and his partner Adolf Meyer to design a new factory in Alfeld, in the Leine valley of Lower Saxony. They gave it walls of glass that seem to wrap around the corners with no column to hold them, a radical trick at the time, and the result was so influential that it became a UNESCO site in 2011. The best part: it is still a working factory making shoe lasts, not a museum frozen in place.

   Read the complete Fagus Factory in Alfeld write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Fagus Factory in Alfeld is where the day begins. Next is Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe.

2. 2. Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe

   There is a giant on the hill above Kassel, and he has been there since the early eighteenth century. The Hercules statue, a copper figure on top of an octagonal structure and a huge stepped pyramid, crowns the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, which the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel began laying out around 1700 as a statement of his power. Below it, a long cascade of steps and basins sends water tumbling down the hillside, and on certain afternoons from May to early October the water features run for the public in a spectacle that takes well over an hour to reach the bottom. UNESCO listed the park in 2013, and it remains one of the largest hillside parks in Europe.

   Read the complete Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe comes up about 123 km into the recorded legs. Next is Wartburg Castle.

3. 3. Wartburg Castle

   Martin Luther spent ten months of his life in a small room in the Wartburg, and it changed the German language. In 1521, after he had refused to recant at the Diet of Worms, his protector, the Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, had him seized on the road and secretly taken to the castle above Eisenach, where he lived in hiding under the name of Junker Jörg, a knight. There, in a few weeks, he translated the New Testament from Greek into German, a version that helped fix the written language and spread Reformation ideas. The room, with its panelled walls and a stove, is the heart of the castle.

   Read the complete Wartburg Castle write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 227 km into the recorded legs you reach Wartburg Castle. Next is back through Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe.

4. 4. back through Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, late in the day. Next is Fagus Factory in Alfeld.

5. 5. Fagus Factory in Alfeld

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Fagus Factory in Alfeld write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Fagus Factory in Alfeld. That is the ride.