The Stadtschloß

From a walk in the morning (…) we saw that Weimar was more like a market town than the precinct of a court. And this is the ’Athens of the north’, we said. Materially speaking, it is more like Sparta. (…) One’s first feeling is: How could Goethe live here, in this dull, lifeless village? (…) We soon had our impression modified when in the evening we found our way to the Belvedere Chaussée, that splendid avenue of chestnut trees – when we saw the Schloss and discovered the labyrinthine beauties of the Park (…).
– from George Eliot, Recollections of Weimar

Extended reading from George Eliot, Recollections of Weimar/Three Months in Weimar, by Trish Osmond.