Truly this is a cultural capital

It is the smallest place yet to receive the honour of the title European City of Culture. Weimar, this famous town in central Germany, formerly the East, was awarded it for 1999 because of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Goethe, who lived here for more than 50 years. The twin images of the place are most obviously Goethe and his friend the dramatist Schiller. Another great icon is the Volkswagen car; every second vehicle is a Golf.

The citizens take Goethe's legacy very seriously but are also quick to point out that the philosopher and critic, Herder, lived here and worked as a pastor. He stands on the plinth outside the Stadkirche St Peter and Paul at the Herderplatz. Inside the gloomy but magnificent church, a continuing shrine to Lutheran doctrine since 1525, is a masterpiece of Renaissance art, Cranach's three-winged altar painting begun by the Elder and completed by the Younger.

In the Marktplatz, the house in which Cranach the Elder lived for the last year of his life, and which was restored in 1972 to mark the 500th anniversary of his birth, is now an art gallery. On the southern side of the Marktplatz is the Elephant, the most famous hotel in Weimar, immortalised by Thomas Mann in Lotte in Weimar. Step inside and unfortunately it quickly becomes obvious that it also became a social headquarters of sorts for the officers of the Third Reich, and the decor is more evocative of 1930s Berlin than it is characteristic of Weimar. Throughout the town, rebuilding and restoration is taking place. Its long chaotic history has left its stains on Weimar, not least of which is the irony that so much of Goethe's Weimar lies under the layers of 20th-century war and destruction. So many of the pretty period buildings, some baroque, others almost Hapsburgian and all painted in a charming array of pinks, washed yellows, pale reds, greens and blues, with detailed tiled roofs, are in fact reproduction.

Daily life goes on while workmen lay cobblestones, paint and chip stone with a speed and efficiency guaranteed to make Irish people scarred by misadventures with builders anxious to recruit these men. Cycling around the town is the best way to grasp the geography. At Platz der Demokratie is a formidable statue of Carl August astride a horse. To the left is the great library created by his mother Anna Amalia. Architecturally it marries the Renaissance and the Rococo, while it symbolises the intellectual aspiration of a court which became, under her, most enlightened.

Across the road from it is the Furstenhaus, the Duke's House, initially Baroque on its completion in 1774 but later rendered more classical by a new facade. It was here that the 18-year-old Karl August first lived on assuming power in 1774, as Weimar's palace had burnt down that same year. Since 1950 it has been the conservatory, and the quality of the music coming from it on a rainy afternoon as we mend a punctured front tyre is performance class.

Though small, Weimar possesses a rich collection of German classicist and romantic art, as well as other European painting including the Cranach gallery and a Dutch collection.

Cycling back around to Goethe's house, one passes a dramatic bust of Pushkin at the feet of which still lay flowers, now withered, honouring his bi-centenary in June. The Ilm parkland lies open to the left but by following a slight incline on an artfully curved street, the rear walls of the Goethe house, with the promise of a magnificent garden, is visible. Back down that winding street, at the front entrance visitors queue for entry. Once inside, one realises the cool, low-ceilinged maze of rooms is built around a courtyard. In the blue and very grand Juno room, the young Mendelssohn played more than once. Goethe's old couch, slightly lopsided with time, lists towards us. A child runs in under the ropes and an alarm sounds, though no guard arrives. The great man's library, complete with 6,000 volumes, remains intact, as does his study. The garden, with its traditional array of flowers, is romantic and quite feminine. The favourite souvenirs of Goethe are suitably dignified alabaster busts made by an Italian craftsman.

There is little English spoken in Weimar - German competes with bad French and Russian, the legacy of communism. A glamorous shop is a temple of superior Christmas tree decorations; it may be summer but business is better than good. A number of tourists becomes a patient team, hoping to photograph the beautiful house once lived in by Schiller without having it obscured by passers-by. Painted a warm yellow, it has green shutters and the same glorious wooden floors common to Goethe's house, but it feels more homely. Complete with a study and several small reception rooms and a nursery, it is welcoming enough to settle in.

Kandinsky and his fellow Bauhaus colleagues worked in Weimar; the museum faces the theatre. Nietzsche spent his last three years here, while Lizst came in 1848 hoping in vain to spearhead a Silver Age to succeed the Golden Age of Goethe while also juggling a complex love life. Long before that, in the 17th century, another musician had arrived here. The young Johann Sebastian Bach arrived in 1708 and spent nine years as court organist, violinist and concert master; it was here he perfected his cantata form.

Lizst was to return each summer from 1869 until 1886 and rent the middle floor of the court gardener's house. It is beautiful, the rooms are arranged as they were in his time; his grand piano remains in the study as does a sketch of Beethoven high on the wall.

The old cemetery is very peaceful; most of the memorials line the stone walls leaving the grass free of headstones. Downstairs in the Ducal Church lie Goethe and Schiller in the company of Carl August and other princes.

Out in the Ilm Park, cyclists race, a group of young men play frisbee. At the train station, a children's group has mounted an exhibition based on the theme of a train consisting of carriages each representing a European country. Small, clean, ordered and aware of history at every corner, it was here in 1912 in the company of Max Brod that Kafka fell unrequitedly in love with a young girl. A six-mile bus trip leads to Buchenwald, the concentration camp, situated in the middle of a romantic birch forest.

Briefly the centre of the Republic, Weimar is Goethe's town, but not a city. Dogs are walked on leashes, drivers are polite, and rampaging commercialism has not yet won.