I have a few minutes before I have to be outside the hotel with my packed bags ready for the train station for a three hour trip to Frankfurt. Their trains are very comfortable and extremely fast. In fact, one must get on and off the train very quickly. I'm all packed and have a few minutes to write before we leave for the train station nearby and wanted to catch you up on a few places that we visÃted last week which I failed to write about. One of them was the library in Weimar that housed medieval manuscripts, historic maps, and rare and first edition books, including important collections of Bibles and sheet music.
This library was built in 1691 and has the largest collection of Goethe's work including his well-known work Faust. In 2004 the library had an electrical fire which destroyed 50,000 historic books. We saw some of the damaged books and other pieces that they are restoring. The books and other historical materials are in different stages of either irrepairable damage or can be restored to some extent. Those that they are unable to restore at this time, are being housed in a climate-controlled room which they can bring out at a future date when new technology might allow them to restore the books and documents close to their original conditions. You can see such a book in the photo above. The library reopened in October 24, 2007, the birthday of the Duchess for whom the library was named when it was founded more than 400 years ago.
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