Villa Reuter in Eisenach and "De Reis' nah Konstantinopel" @museum.de

M: The final book – and their first major journey – takes the Reuters via Vienna, Verona, Trieste, Corfu and Athens all the way to Constantinople. Fritz and Luise travelled on one of the first package tours, which the upper middle classes were now able to afford. And of course Reuter decants his experiences during the two-month journey into a novel. 1868 saw the publication of "De Reis' nah Konstantinopel", in which two Mecklenburg families head out into the big, wide world.

F: Luise and Fritz Reuter had been living in liberal Thuringia for five years. Even their first flat in Eisenach was, as Reuter confessed, "a little fairy palace". In early 1868, they moved into a house of their own – a neoclassical villa they'd had built at the foot of Wartburg Castle. Fritz Reuter was over the moon:

M: "It will stand in a niche I had blasted out of the rock this winter, just to the south, in a terraced garden with large trees in front of me [...] On the right we can see the Wartburg, with a view of the valleys Marieenthal and Johannisthal on the left. [...] What do you say? It may turn out quite nicely, but it will also cost a chunk of money. But I hope to be moving into an unencumbered property by Easter '68, with the contented feeling that I have earned it all with my pen.

F: This was where Reuter – by now the most widely read author in the German language – would take up residence, receive visitors and enjoy his fame. But the Reuter Villa attracted more than just visitors to Eisenach. An entire Wilhelminian-style villa district grew up in the area surrounding the home of the famous poet, now a wealthy man. People liked to live in Reuter's vicinity.