Wetzlar

Wetzlar, a former Free Imperial City on the Lahn, was seat of the Holy Roman Empire's Imperial Chamber Court (Reichskammergericht) from the 16th to 18th centuries; when the Empire dissolved in 1806 and the court closed, the city found new prosperity in the Industrial Revolution as a centre of precision engineering and optics, most notably with the founding of Leitz — later Leica — in 1849. It was in Wetzlar in 1913 that Oskar Barnack invented the 35mm Leica camera, and the city remains home to Leica Camera's headquarters, with a factory tour and museum at Leitz-Park on the edge of town. Wetzlar also has a literary claim to fame: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spent several months there in 1772, an experience that inspired his novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther." The Lottehaus, former home of Charlotte Buff — the model for the novel's Lotte — is preserved as a museum of 18th-century life, and the nearby house where legal trainee Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem shot himself (inspiring Werther's fate) still stands.

By train

Regular services go to Frankfurt, Cologne, Fulda, Limburg. There extensive connections on the German high speed train network (ICE) from these cities.

By plane

Wetzlar has no airport so head for Frankfurt/Main ( FRA   IATA ), Germany's busiest airport.

By car

Wetzlar has a good connection to the German "Autobahn". Three junctions leads from the Autobahn 45 in the city. The federal route B49 begins in Luxembourg and leads through the city.

Wetzlar's old town is compact and walkable; Leitz-Park is on the edge of town and reachable by local bus or a longer walk.

The almost complete ensemble of historic buildings and houses in the old town has been largely preserved and restored to its condition at the end of the 18th century. Its half-timbered houses and stone buildings date from the Romanesque period (Wetzlar Cathedral), the Gothic period, the Renaissance and the Baroque period. It includes the squares Buttermarkt/Domplatz, Fischmarkt, Eisenmarkt, Kornmarkt and the former Franziskanerhof (now Schillerplatz). The 50 or so particularly noteworthy buildings include: a so-called wall-post building from 1356, the Old Mint on the Eisenmarkt, the 15th-century Roman Emperor (a former theatre and ballroom), the former Teutonic Order Court (today the Municipal Museum), the Lotte House (home of Charlotte Buff), the Karl-Wilhelm-Jerusalem House (in which the legal trainee Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem shot himself and thus achieved sad fame as Werther in Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther ), and the princely Palais Papius (which houses the collection of historical furniture put together by Baroness Irmgard von Lemmers-Danforth).

Considerable remains of the city fortifications from the 13th and 14th centuries are preserved around the old town.

Leitz-Park, on the edge of the city, includes a Leica factory tour and museum on the history of optics and 35mm photography.

Wetzlar offers canoeing and hiking/cycling paths along the Lahn river, and the Leitz-Park factory tour and museum for those interested in Leica's history.

Best Western Hotel Wetzlar ,

Karl-Kellner-Ring 40 ,

☏

+49 6441 9060 .

The old town has small independent shops (bakeries, butchers, florists, clothing), and "The Forum" is a shopping mall with around 110 shops.

• Berlin — Germany's capital city, reachable by regional train
• Nearby towns in Hessen — explore the surrounding region