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Town in Thuringia, Germany
Photo: Zinneke, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Gotha is a city of 45,000 people (2019) in Thuringia. The main sights of Gotha are the early-modern Friedenstein Castle, one of the largest Renaissance Baroque castles in Germany, the medieval city centre and the Gründerzeit buildings of 19th-century commercial boom.
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Schloss Friedenstein
Early-Baroque palace of the Dukes of Saxe-Gotha, built in 1643–1654 as one of Germany's biggest 17th-century stately homes. The complex includes the Schlossmuseum (museum), museum of regional history, huge numismatic collection, the Ekhof-Theater (ducal court theatre), a research centre as well as the palace chapel and ducal tombs. The casemates of the palace's fortress are accessible, too.
Herzogliches Museum
The Dukes' arts collection, including Egyptian and Graeco-Roman antiques, Renaissance paintings, East Asian arts and sculptures of different eras.
Schlosspark
The 91-acre park is one of the biggest in Germany and a very beautiful, too. It was one of the first English-style landscape gardens in Germany and all of continental Europe. There is a number of very old trees, including some 500-year-old oaks.
Neogothic 18th-century maison de plaisance, imitating the look of a chapel.
Schloss Friedrichsthal
Baroque three-wing summer residence from the 1700s, modelled on Versailles.
Winterpalais
Neoclassical city palace from 1822. Having decayed during the 1990s and 2000s, it had to be teared down and was completely rebuilt in 2014. Now it hosts the city library.
Prinzenpalais
Early Neoclassical villa built for Prince August, one of the Duke's brothers, who was a friend of Goethe and sympathised with the ideas of Enlightenment and sponsored a circle of artists, including Herder and Wieland. Since the 1990s, it stands empty.
Museum der deutschen Versicherungswirtschaft
Museum about the history of insurance business
Former hospital, established in 1223 by Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia. The current Baroque-style building was constructed in 1716–1719.
Margarethenkirche
Late-Gothic hall church; one of the town's oldest extant buildings.
Augustinerkirche
Former monastic church of the Augustinian Hermits. Martin Luther (who was an Augustinian Friar himself) preached here in 1521. Rather modest Gothic hall church from the outside, but contains a rich Baroque interior, including a stately box for the Dukes and an early-Baroque organ case.
Former buildings of the Perthes publishing house of maps and atlases. Now houses the Thuringian state archives and a research library.
Place where the Socialist Workers' Party was established in 1875
Tierpark
Home to more than 600 animals of 140 different species.
Pferderennbahn Boxberg
Bürgerturm
35-m-high tower on a hill with panoramic view over the further surroundings.
Simple but clean guesthouse in the old town; each room with private bathroom; friendly hosts.
17 hostel rooms in a monastery, right in the old town. Each with private bathroom (shower, WC) but no TV.
Four-star-hotel (90 rooms), surrounded by gardens, 2 km from castle and old town.
Four-star hotel (94 rooms), spa with sauna and salt cave, just outside the castle grounds, 400 m from the castle.
Gotha is a station on the high-speed rail link between Frankfurt and Leipzig. ICEs call every two hours, taking one hour from Leipzig, two hours from Frankfurt and 2 hr 15 min from Dresden.
Read in the guideThe TWSB operates a tramway network with four urban lines, two in Gotha, plus the Thüringerwaldbahn, one of the few remaining interurban tramway lines in Germany, that links Gotha with the Boxberg hill, the nearby towns…
Read in the guideChoose an airport to see hotels, stations, taxi ranks and car rental desks around it.
Erfurt · International · ERF
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