Today I took a long walk through the city of Jena. One of my goals for the day was to visit several grave stones.

Of course many of you know that I enjoy family history and genealogy so visiting cemeteries is interesting to me. The stones that I share in this post are all of people that interest me as well.

The first gravestone that I will share is that of Carl Zeiss. He was the founder of the company that bears his name. He is buried close to the center of Jena, so I visited his grave last Sunday along with a new Zeiss colleague who was in Jena for the first time.

You will find the name Martin Luther on Carl Zeiss’ grave stone. His second wife was a descendant of Luther.

Since I just mentioned Martin Luther, here is the original grave stone that was to have been placed on his grave. I took this picture this afternoon while in the Jena Stadtkirche. There is an interesting story about how it ended up in Jena. See my post Reformation Day II to find out why it is in Jena.

To visit the other two graves I wanted to see  I had to hike up to the newer cemetery called Nordfriedhof.

Here is the grave of Ernst Abbe. He was an early partner with Carl Zeiss and helped him apply scientific principles to his microscope production. He is notable for his contributions to the field of optics.

 The other grave stone that I was looking for at the Nordfiredhof has a very interesting look. The names are on a stone slab in the opening.

This is the grave stone of Otto Schott who was known for his glass production. The synergy between Carl Zeiss, Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott was responsible for the success of both the Carl Zeiss and Schott Glass companies.

I walked quite a bit today, but it was worth every step.

I have several colleagues who have fitbits and they have been sharing how many steps we have been taking. However, they were not with me today. Then I remembered that my new phone had some type of activity monitor and found out that it kept track of my steps. I walked about 25,000 steps today and over 11 miles.

I also stopped to take a lot of pictures today and will share more of them in the future.

Steven