Yesterday was very busy - all ride participants arrived at hotel, we selected our bikes and helmets, received brief instructions on how to operate the bikes (really?) and then set out on a whirlwind tour of significant Bach-related sites throughout Eisenach.

Some of the highlights are featured below:

Bach's Birthplace - or so it was thought for many years. However, historians now believe that the Bachhaus (below) was not, in fact, the house were he was born on March 21, 1685 and lived until 1695. He most likely lived close by the Bachhaus but because of frequent house numbering changes as the town grew, what had long been orignially thought to be the actual house, and is now the official Bachhaus museum, was not. However, the museum is chock full of authentic Bach artifacts, including historic instruments.


Bach attended the St. George's Latin School, the same school that Martin Luther attended nearly two centuries earlier - 1498 and 1501. Martin Luther returned to Eisenach (1521/22) to take refuge in the Wartburg Castle where, in just eleven weeks, he translated the New Testament from Greek into German, crea­ting not only a best­seller but also the found­ation of written German.


Extant records strongly suggest that Bach was, at best, a middling student.

Entrance to St. George's Latin School (note plaques on either side of door)

Both Luther and Bach sang in the St. George's Church choir as a students. For more than 132 years members of Johann Sebastian Bach’s family made music on the organ bench of this baptistery.

One of the sublime highlights of the afternoon occurred when we visited the enclosed park at the rear of the St. George's Latin School. Our tour guides played a composition, Meine Freundin, du bist schön  (click here to listen) by Johann Christoph Bach, the organist and composer at St. George's (not to be confused with Johann Sebastin's brother, he was actually J.S. Bach's first cousin, once removed). Sebastian Bach described him in his Genealogy (1735) as "the profound composer", clearly indicating the high esteem in which he was held, both within the Bach family and throughout Germany. Sitting there, listening to music composed by one of his relatives, the organist at the church during J.S. Bach's time there, imagining the young Bach playing with his classmates in the very spot where we sat, was thrilling!

Actual Baptismal font in which J.S. Bach was baptized on March 23, 1685

Actual Baptismal font in which J.S. Bach was baptized on March 23, 1685

J.S. Bach Statue in front of the Bachhaus Museum in Eisenach