Friday
On Friday we woke up and headed to Wartburg castle at the edge of town. Our bus was able to take us about 2/3 of the way up the mountain and then we walked the remainder. The castle is over 800 years old and was the castle in which Luther was hid while in hiding. Here we saw the room where he worked to translate the NT in German from Greek. He did this in 100 days. While others had translated parts of the bible years before, his work was notable because he was the first to translate it from the original. His efforts are credited with creating a unified german language as there were 18 different dialects in his day.
After castle we began our drive to Flossenburg concentration camp grabbing lunch on the motorway. It is amazing how fast the cars are when they pass us with no speed limit. Buses and trucks have a 102 kilometer speed limit.
We did not have nearly enough time in Flossenburg. We saw 25% of the camp and 10% of the exhibits. We did see the crematory from a distance and visited the site where Bonhoffer was executed as the Americans were preparing to liberate the camp.
After the visit we began the 2 ½ hour drive to Munich for our hotel. 3 years ago a similar Lutheran Catholic pilgrimage took place a number of factors led to the group missing the train on Saturday to Rome. Our guide is determined we will make it, so we will be sleeping close to train station and ready for the early morning trip to the train station and Rome.
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