4 Best Sights in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia

Within Lutherhhaus is the Augustinian monastery where Martin Luther lived both as a teacher-monk and later, after the monastery was dissolved, as a married man. Today it's a museum dedicated to Luther and the Reformation. Visitors enter through a garden and an elegant door with a carved stone frame; it was a gift to Luther from his wife, Katharina von Bora. Be sure to visit the monks' refectory, where works by the painter Lucas Cranach the Elder, Luther's contemporary, are displayed. The room that remains closest to the original is the dark, wood-paneled Lutherstube. The Luthers and their six children used it as a living room, study, and meeting place for friends and students. Prints, engravings, paintings, manuscripts, coins, and medals relating to the Reformation and Luther's translation of the Bible into the German vernacular are displayed throughout the house. It's closed for renovations until 2026.

Lucas Cranach the Elder—court painter, printer, mayor, pharmacist, friend of Luther's, and probably the wealthiest man in Wittenberg—lived in two houses during his years in town. This Cranachhaus is believed to have been the first one. His son, the painter Lucas Cranach the Younger, was born here. Some of the interior has been restored to its 17th-century condition. It's now a gallery with exhibits about Cranach's life and work. Check out the goldsmith and potter that are occasionally on hand demonstrating their crafts in the courtyard.

In the second Wittenberg home of Cranach the Elder, the Renaissance man not only lived and painted but also operated a print shop, which has been restored and converted into a hotel. The courtyard, where it's thought he did much of his painting, remains much as it was in his day. Local children attend the Malschule (painting school) next to the apothecary.

In this elegantly gabled Renaissance home, the humanist teacher and scholar Philipp Melanchthon corrected Luther's translation of the New Testament from Greek into German. Luther was hiding in the Wartburg in Eisenach at the time, and as each section of his manuscript was completed it was sent to Melanchthon for approval. (Melanchthon is a Greek translation of the man's real name, Schwarzerdt, which means "black earth"; humanists routinely adopted such classical pseudonyms.) The second-floor furnishings have been painstakingly re-created after period etchings.