I have always enjoyed being here... I believe it comes from the harmony in which everything stands: the surroundings, the people, the climate, Thun and Lassen. Many times throughout his life, Goethe visited his Thuringian Arcadia. The journey he undertook with his grandsons Wolfgang and Walther from August 26 to 31, 1831, on his 82nd birthday, just six months before his death, is a journey taken with the awareness of counted days. Here, in the Thuringian Forest, Goethe's conversation with the earth began, sparked by his responsibility for the Ilmenau mining industry. The most beautiful lyrical result of this conversation, the famous poem "Over All the Peaks," was written in 1780 on the wall of a wooden hut on Kickelhahn. In the six days of August 1831, which provide the framework for Sigrid Damm's book, Goethe remembers his wife Christiane.