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...that's what the town of Rudolstadt calls itself in their publicity. The mayor in his welcome speech at the opening ceremony for this year's PEN Club conference used it at least four times. The reason for this is basically that Schiller fell in love with two sisters here, one of whom he married (the other one was already married, unhappily, and ended up getting a divorce, rare but not unheard of at the time), and they're milking that angle for what it's worth, along with this being the place of the first encounter between Schiller and Goethe. Not the meeting which went on to lead to their friendship but the first meeting of hilarious mutual awkwardness (and not a little frustration on Schiller's part - it led to the extraordinary "Goethe is like a proud bitch one has to get pregnant in order to humiliate her in front of the world!" outburst in a letter to his pal Körner, which he was subsequently much embarrassed about but which is one of the most unwittingly telling things he ever wrote, not about Goethe, about himself) - which I must say is reconstructed with spirit and much fun by several actors at the local Schiller museum.

But even aside of the Schiller-and-his-complicated-love-life aspect, it's a charming town in Thuringia. Have a gander!

That's the local castle, the Heidecksburg, as seen from some old trade houses. The castle is where the conference takes place, so we wander up and down on a daily basis.

Certain people have been known to moan about this, but let me tell you, for a Franconian from Bamberg (aka the Franconian Rome, which means it has seven hills), this little Thuringian hillside is nothing. :)

Also, you have a really nice view afterwards:

This is what the courtyard looks like:

And inside:

Now wouldn't you want to go to a conference there? The market place isn't half bad, either:

And that's the garden of the Schiller museum, the house where the sisters Caroline and Charlotte lived when Schiller fell for them, and when he managed to be platonically frustrated by Goethe at the same time: