Direct train from Paris to Frankfurt, the gateway to a Germany where commerce, faith, and artistic creation have been intertwined since the splendors of the Roman Empire.

On arrival, the Städel Museum opens a journey through 7 centuries of Western painting: from early Rhenish primitives to Flemish masters, from the Renaissance to the avant-gardes of the 20^th century. This major cultural institution unfolds across a labyrinth of galleries where natural light accompanies the works throughout the day. Founded through the 1815 will of banker Johann Friedrich Städel, an avid art collector devoted to sharing his treasures with his city, it remains the oldest museum foundation in Germany.

A walk along the Main River follows, crossing bridges that link the commercial bank to Frankfurt’s old town, carefully rebuilt over time, until reaching the Imperial Cathedral of St. Bartholomew, whose red sandstone tower has watched over the city’s rooftops for centuries. Designated the electoral site of the kings of the Roman Empire in 1356, and the coronation church of ten emperors between 1562 and 1792, it preserves in the stone of its choir the silent memory of five centuries of German imperial power.

In the late afternoon, continue to Kronberg im Taunus and check-in at the Schlosshotel Kronberg, a castle built between 1889 and 1894 for the Dowager Empress Victoria, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, in memory of her husband Emperor Frederick III, who reigned for just ninety-nine days. Architect Ernst von Ihne combined English Gothic, German Renaissance, and Hessian half-timbering to create a residence both princely and intimate, set within a park where evening silence falls early over the trees. The salons still preserve the furniture and art collections assembled by the Empress over thirty years of marriage.

Dinner and overnight at Schlosshotel Kronberg (1/1).

Breakfast at the hotel.

Private transfer to Thuringia, a land of deep forests, castles, and foundational figures of German culture, where the road winds between wooded hills and villages with steeply pitched roofs.

In Eisenach, the town where Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 and spent his first ten years, the Bach House Museum displays nearly nine hundred historical instruments in a 15^th century half-timbered house, one of the finest museums dedicated to the composer. A concert on historical instruments brings this musical memory to life, revealing the timbres Bach himself might have known (harpsichord, Silbermann spinet, clavichord, and baroque organs) in rare proximity to the original sound world.

Lunch and time to explore the town, before ascending to the Wartburg Castle, the fortress that has dominated Eisenach since the 12^th century, watching over the city like a stone sentinel visible from afar through the treetops. It is here, according to a legend already recorded in the 13^th century, that Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia, a generous patron of the arts, is said to have gathered the Minnesingers, including Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide, for a singing contest remembered as the Sängerkrieg. Richard Wagner later used this legend as the basis for his opera Tannhäuser. More importantly, it was here that Martin Luther, sheltered after the Diet of Worms, translated the New Testament into German in just a few months, in an upstairs room where the silence must have weighed as heavily as the stakes were high – thereby laying the foundations of a shared literary language and profoundly reshaping Europe’s religious balance.

Return to Hotel Hohenhaus, an elegant country residence set within a vast estate.

Dinner and overnight at Hotel Hohenhaus (1/1).

Breakfast at the hotel.

Departure for Weimar, a small city in Thuringia with pastel façades, where what is known as Weimar Classicism took shape at the end of the eighteenth century – a fertile dialogue between Goethe and Schiller around ideals of beauty, humanism, and balance.

The morning is devoted to a visit of Goethe’s House, where the writer lived for more than twenty years until his death in 1832. Room by room, the residence reveals a man of wide-ranging curiosity: a vast library, a natural science cabinet, and collections assembled over a lifetime bear witness to a mind equally devoted to science and poetry.

The Duchess Anna Amalia Library completes this immersion in Weimar’s golden age. Its Rococo oval hall houses one of Germany’s most precious collections, partly saved in 2004 from a devastating fire by a human chain spontaneously formed by the city’s inhabitants.

A stroll follows through the city’s colorful streets, where memories of Franz Liszt, court music director from 1842 to 1858 and tireless advocate of new music, intersect with those of Friedrich Nietzsche, who spent his final years here, and the Bauhaus, founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 amid the post-war upheaval.

Lunch at the ANNO 1900, a historic restaurant in Weimar housed in a former winter garden dating from the late 19th century. It is linked to several famous figures, notably Franz Liszt, who used to organise soirées there with young artists, and Franz Kafka, who stayed there in 1912.

In the late afternoon, return to Leipzig, a charming city shaped by centuries of trade fairs, publishing, and music, and closely associated with the work and legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, and Edvard Grieg.

The afternoon will naturally lead us to the Thomaskirche, a light-coloured brick church where Bach trained the choirs, taught generations of musicians and performed his cantatas week after week. His grave now lies in front of the altar.

Check-in at the Steigenberger Grandhotel Handelshof.

Dinner at the Stadtpfeiffer restaurant, the town’s Michelin-starred establishment, renowned for its refined and creative cuisine.

Overnight at the Steigenberger Grandhotel Handelshof.

After checking out of the hotel, the morning begins with a visit to the Mendelssohn House, the final residence of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and the only surviving home of the composer anywhere in the world. A conductor, pianist, and educator, Mendelssohn was also the figure who restored Johann Sebastian Bach to the forefront of musical history. In 1829, in Berlin, he conducted the first performance of the St Matthew Passion since Bach’s death, a landmark event that returned the composer to the central place he continues to hold today. In Leipzig, where Mendelssohn served as Kapellmeister and helped shape the city’s musical institutions, his private world is revealed through elegant reception rooms, manuscripts, and personal correspondence, offering an intimacy that no biography alone could convey.

In the warmly paneled Musiksalon, the Saxonia Piano Trio presents a private concert featuring works by Haydn and Schumann, recreating the spirit of the intimate musical evenings that Mendelssohn himself hosted here for friends and fellow musicians.

Lunch is served at the Thüringer Hof, one of Leipzig’s historic restaurants, long cherished by both locals and visitors alike.

Late afternoon at leisure. We recommend visiting St. Nicholas Church (Nikolaikirche), where the Monday Prayers that began in 1982 became the focal point of the peaceful demonstrations of autumn 1989, or exploring the Museum of Fine Arts, whose outstanding collections span from the Old Masters to contemporary art.

This evening, the Gewandhaus Orchestra welcomes Andris Nelsons for a concert in the Großer Saal, a hall whose legendary acoustics have attracted the world’s greatest conductors for generations.

GEWANDHAUSORCHESTER & ANDRIS NELSONS

After the concert, dinner at the Weinstock restaurant, housed in a historic building dating from 1580, which serves regional Saxon cuisine blended with international influences.

Overnight at the Steigenberger Grandhotel Handelshof.

A guided walking tour opens this day devoted to Bach with an exploration of the city’s historic center. The visit continues at the Bach Museum, located opposite St. Thomas Church, where the twenty-seven years during which Johann Sebastian Bach served as Cantor of the St. Thomas School are brought vividly to life. It was here that, week after week, he composed the greater part of his cantatas and many of his greatest sacred works. The museum offers insight not only into the composer’s life but also into the musical, religious, and intellectual world of eighteenth-century Leipzig, a city where Lutheran faith, commerce, and scholarship were closely intertwined.

Lunch at Goldberg restaurant, which serves traditional German cuisine with a modern twist, using regional produce and incorporating international influences, in an elegant yet cosy setting.

Following lunch, the journey continues to Berlin international airport for the return flight to Paris.