Ohrdruf

Ohrdruf lies at the northern foot of the Thuringian Forest. Saint Boniface is said to have founded a monastery dedicated to Saint Michael here in the eighth century. The town received municipal rights in 1399, and in 1550 Count Georg II of Gleichen began building Ehrenstein Castle on the site of the old monastery.

The castle later passed to the counts of Hohenlohe, who altered it in the Baroque style after 1760. In 1695 the orphaned Johann Sebastian Bach came to Ohrdruf to live with his elder brother Johann Christoph, organist at Saint Michael's Church and a teacher at the local school. Bach lived in Ohrdruf from the age of ten to fifteen, spending five formative years in the town before leaving to continue his education.