Hotels in Jena

Jena is a university and optics town on the Saale river in Thuringia, best known as the home of Carl Zeiss, Ernst Abbe and Schott glass, whose precision-instrument legacy still shapes the local economy and the excellent Optical Museum. Friedrich Schiller University, founded in the sixteenth century, gives the place a young, lively feel, and around 1800 it was briefly the intellectual centre of Germany, drawing Schiller, Goethe, Hegel, Fichte and the early Romantics. The setting is the real draw: steep limestone hills and vineyard slopes rise straight out of the valley, with good walking almost from the doorstep.

Be honest: wartime bombing and East German planning left the centre a patchy mix of surviving old lanes, concrete blocks and the cylindrical JenTower, so it rarely charms at first glance, and the hotel choice is modest for a city its size. Weimar is a short train ride away if you want more polished historic streets. Stay in the compact centre around the Markt and Johannisstrasse, where the university, museums, bars and the tower are all within easy walking distance.