Qualla: Erfurt https://qualla.com/erfurt en-us © 2026 Bendyline Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:49:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/f/erfurt-wk/hero-small.webp Qualla: Erfurt https://qualla.com/erfurt Erfurt: Introduction https://qualla.com/erfurt/ Photo credit Michael Sander, CC BY-SA 3.0. The money came out of a weed. For a long stretch of the Middle Ages, Erfurt's fortune rested on woad - Isatis tinctoria, an unremarkable yellow-flowered plant whose leaves, crushed, rolled into balls and left to ferment, yielded the only dependable blue dye in northern Europe. Everything the visitor now comes for was paid for by it: the merchant houses, the church towers, the university, the bridge lined with shops. Erfurt sat at the crossroads of the Via Regia, belonged to the Hanseatic League, and grew large and confident enough that when the rest of Germany was flattened in the twentieth century, what survived here amounted to one of the best-preserved medieval city centres in the country.

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Image: Michael Sander | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/f/erfurt-wk/u1pf-erfurt-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Erfurt: The Blue That Paid for Everything https://qualla.com/erfurt/ Photo credit Pedelecs, CC BY-SA 3.0. Woad was grown across the Thuringian basin and traded through a handful of towns - Erfurt alongside Gotha, Arnstadt, Langensalza and Tennstedt - and the trade made all of them wealthy. Erfurt made the most of it, because Erfurt had the roads. The Via Regia, the great east-west hi...

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]]> Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/f/erfurt-wk/u1pf-erfurt-the-blue-that-paid-for-everything.mp3 0:06 2 full Erfurt: Two Churches on One Hill https://qualla.com/erfurt/ Photo credit Tilman2007, CC BY-SA 3.0. Nothing in Erfurt prepares you for the Domplatz. The square is enormous and mostly empty, and along its western edge the ground lifts into a terrace carrying two great churches side by side - the cathedral and the church of St. Severus - reached by a broad flight of stone steps t...

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]]> Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/f/erfurt-wk/u1pf-erfurt-two-churches-on-one-hill.mp3 0:06 3 full Erfurt: The University That Died and Came Back https://qualla.com/erfurt/ Photo credit User:MatthiasKabel, CC BY-SA 3.0. Erfurt founded its university in 1379, making it one of the oldest in Germany, and for a while it mattered enormously. A miner's son from Mansfeld enrolled here in 1501, took his degrees, and in 1505 walked into the Augustinian monastery on the other side of town. Martin Luther w...

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]]> Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/f/erfurt-wk/u1pf-erfurt-the-university-that-died-and-came-back.mp3 0:06 4 full Erfurt: The Oldest Layer https://qualla.com/erfurt/ Photo credit Frauemacht, CC BY-SA 4.0. Parts of Erfurt's Old Synagogue date to around 1094, which makes it the oldest surviving synagogue building in Europe, and the history it belongs to runs through the whole city. The first congregation was destroyed in 1349, when slanderous rumours blamed local Jews for the plague...

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]]> Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/f/erfurt-wk/u1pf-erfurt-the-oldest-layer.mp3 0:06 5 full Erfurt: Bratwurst, Trams, and a Window in 1970 https://qualla.com/erfurt/ Photo credit Michael Sander, CC BY-SA 3.0. The everyday city is easy company. A little over 218,000 people live here, the centre is small enough to cross on foot, and the trams come every ten minutes when you would rather not. The Thüringer Bratwurst is an Erfurt original and is sold from stalls all over town, each one co...

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]]> Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/f/erfurt-wk/u1pf-erfurt-bratwurst-trams-and-a-window-in-1970.mp3 0:06 6 full