Museum Festival and Home(market) Kloster Veßra

Kloster Veßra — over 850 years of history

The Hennebergisches Museum Kloster Veßra is located at one of the most historically rich sites in southern Thuringia. The former Augustinian canonry was founded in 1131 and was one of the region's most important monasteries — the seat of the Counts of Henneberg-Schleusingen, who dominated southern Thuringia from the 11th to the 16th century. After the Reformation, the monastery was dissolved, and the complex served as a farm estate for a long time. The Hennebergisches Museum has been housed here since 1975 — an open-air museum that combines the medieval monastery complex with half-timbered houses, farmsteads, and craft businesses from the region.

Market with a regional focus

The museum festival also serves as the largest regional market in the southern Thuringian Henneberg region. The focus «Heima(rk)t» (a pun combining «Heimat» [home] and «Markt» [market]) means: exhibitors are exclusively from the region, many from Kloster Veßra and the surrounding Henneberg towns. They trade agricultural products (honey, cheese, sausage, bread, juices), regional crafts (blacksmithing, basket weaving, ceramics, woodcraft), traditional homemade specialties, and souvenirs. Many exhibitors continue to work on-site, demonstrating their techniques — blacksmiths forge, potters throw, basket weavers weave.

Live music and family program

On a stage in the main monastery courtyard, folk and medieval music, minstrel troupes, local choirs, and small folk bands alternate. The monastery building itself offers exceptional acoustics for intimate concerts. For children, there is a petting zoo with historic domestic animal breeds, hands-on stations on the farm (baking bread, felting, spinning), historic games on the village green, and guided tours through the monastery museum with child-friendly explanations. The monastery café serves cake and coffee.

Henneberg Region — Southern Thuringian Identity

The Henneberg Region encompasses the southernmost districts of Thuringia — Hildburghausen, Schmalkalden-Meiningen, Suhl — and extends into the Franconian hinterland of Bavaria. The region has its own historical identity, shaped by the Counts of Henneberg, who determined the area's destiny for over 500 years. Language, architectural styles, food, and customs differ from those in northern and central Thuringia. The Hennebergisches Museum is the identity-forming cultural center of this region — and the museum festival with Heima(rk)t is an opportunity to experience Henneberg culture in a concentrated form.