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Climbing its hill, however, is anything but relaxing. Up and up we went, legs cramping, backs bending, lungs heaving. Never had I wished more ardently that lungs were filled with helium instead of oxygen! My faithful backpack, which I have taken on almost all my pilgrimages, bore heavily on my shoulders, and were it not for Luther's stay at this castle, I might have been tempted to chuck it all and take a taxi to the train station.

But Luther did stay here. He grew a beard, wore a cloak and dagger, went on hunts and even called himself Junker Jörg (Knight George). The walls of the castle protected him against the threats of the world and perhaps even inspired the words of his most famous hymn, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." For Luther, the lofty ledges of Wartburg reminded him that God is, as the psalmist writes, "my rock, my fortress and my deliverer" (Psalm 18:2).

No one needed delivering more than Luther. No one needed rescuing more than he. And like a caterpillar protected by a stone cocoon, Luther's words became his wings — words that enabled him to carry the translated gospel throughout the German geography.

Vivienne Hull once wrote, "Unlike mere travel, a pilgrimage is a journey into the landscape of the soul."1 As the road to Wartburg Castle went upward, my thoughts went inward and I began to examine the landscape of my own soul. I questioned my Christianity. What if the path before me dissolved and I was left searching for God in the gravel? What if I woke up one morning and everything I'd placed my hope in had been proved false? Was I on track with God? Could I be confident in my salvation? Deep contemplation accompanied me up the 1,230 feet of that castle cliff, and when I arrived at the summit, I reached the conclusion that perhaps the beauty of faith lies in the blindness of life.

A medieval drawbridge connects the pilgrim to Wartburg Castle. It provides the only access to the castle and hasn't changed in appearance since the time of Luther. We crossed its planks, much like Luther did, except that he was blindfolded, probably bound and secretly smuggled in a buggy. Because of Luther's residency here, many pilgrims have climbed this mountain and carved their names into the sides of the castle; some of the inscriptions date back to the 1600s.

Inside the fortress is a small courtyard. The architecture of the surrounding buildings and houses reflects the Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance eras. Many of them have been perfectly preserved and restored, including an ancient well. During the 1530s and 1540s, the dungeon of the south tower held a large number of Anabaptists, including Fritz Erbe, who carved his signature into the prison wall with the bone of his finger.

But we had not come primarily to the Wartburg Castle for Anabaptists or architecture. We came to set our eyes on Luther's study, the room where he spent many lonely days incognito, translating the Bible. I stood at the entrance of the musty room, still catching my breath from the long hike up the hill. Its layout is simple, no more than ten feet by twenty feet. On the left side of the room a small window provides a spectacular view of the German mountains. By day Luther must have loved this view, but at night the window was ravished by bats as they whispered sweet nothings of evil against the pane.

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April (Web-only) 2009, Vol. 53