.: sunday drive: naumburg or of meissen men :.

H and I took a small detour on our way home, taking advantage of the late summer glory amid a string of gloomy or otherwise engaged days, and had a drive through the Burgenland of Saxony-Anhalt.
Though this region still closely guards its secret to be later discovered, we visited the town of Naumburg on the banks of the Saale, which is one of the signature attractions of the area and much of what one misses from the fly-over of the Autobahn. Before being displaced by Leipzig as a trade-centre, Naumburg was an a very important regional-hub on the Via Regia that stretched from Prague to Frankfurt am Main during medieval times snd retains many of the trappings of this forgotten prominence.
The Castle Schoneberg, built by the Margraves of Meissen on the highest point of the town—a castle with such a commanding view is called a Burgberg, for a fortress-on-a-hill, is now used as a hall of justice and provides a very nice vantage point to see the town's cathedral below.
Naumburger Dom is dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul and features some venerable architectural elements owning to its long developmental stage—first late Romantic, which lends it name and style to the route that intersects with the town's history as a trade-road, then Gothic before being crowned with Baroque towers, patterned off the design of the Cathedral of Bamberg. It is always with distinct pleasure to explore what lies in between—sometimes passed over just for the sake of expedience, and importantly what is just around the bend of one exit (Ausfahrt) too far. We'll surely get the chance to find out what lies just off the beaten-path.