Erfurt (dpa/th) - Christians throughout Thuringia celebrated Pentecost with church services at the weekend. On Monday, for example, around 150 people gathered for an ecumenical open-air service on the Severi-Wiese on the Domberg in Erfurt in sunny and warm weather. Families with children took advantage of the nice weather and settled down on the meadow with blankets. According to the church, the service, which was also held in sign language, was "about understanding between people with different languages, from different cultures, with different views".
The summer church in the Welkershausen church in Meiningen also started on Monday. According to the church, a team of volunteers and full-time employees will hold a devotional on the subject of "table stories" every Sunday at 7:00 p.m. until the end of August. There was also a special service in Volkenroda: an ecumenical baptismal commemoration was celebrated there in the open air.
In addition, Whit Monday was dedicated to the mills. On the occasion of the German Mill Day, interested parties could take a look behind the scenes of various mills. Guided tours as well as handicraft demonstrations and much more were offered. Post mills, water mills, fulling mills and tower windmills were all to be discovered. In addition, the castles in the Free State were again the starting points for numerous visitors during the Thuringian Castle Days.
Meanwhile, many day trippers and the 9-euro ticket kept the train in Thuringia busy at Pentecost. Numerous regional trains, especially to tourist destinations, were very full, Deutsche Bahn said. However, it is still too early to take stock, said a spokeswoman for Deutsche Bahn. At the end of the Pentecost weekend, many return trips were expected.
