Leipzig October 2010

Bach, his gravestone, and the Rathhaus in Leipzig.

October 7, 2010, we were on our way to Leipzig. We spent more than a month in Berlin, and I think we were ready for a new adventure. Leipzig was only an hour away, and our first class seats on the train were perfect. We actually stopped in Wittenberg, the home of Luther and his 95 objections pinned on the wall of the Schloss Church. We leaned out to see the huge bell tower of the church and remember our day in Wittenberg a couple of months earlier.

We got to Leipzig at 1:30pm and hopped a cab to take us to the Novotel Hotel. The journey was all of about two minutes - the hotel was right across the street from the bahnhof! We did not realize it at the time. The cabbie was fine with the short ride. There were several hotels in a row just across the huge street in front of the train station. We found out that Leipzig was the publishing center of the medieval world and had conventions galore in those days. It is still a center for conventions; hence the row of huge hotels so close to the train station.

We settled in to our hotel room and then took a stroll around the city. This was a far cry from Berlin, for we were in the middle of everything: shops, restaurants, churches, opera house and concert house. We were loving it, mainly because it was hard to make our way around the city of Berlin. Here, everything was in walking distance. We were in heaven.

Leipzig was completely demolished by the Allies in the second world war also, so all of the buildings that we investigated were restored to their former beauty. It looked like an old town, but it was really just about twenty years old. It was part of the Soviet bloc from the 40's to the 90's, and only since Germany was reunited was it returned to its former glory.

We learned that the revolution to end the separation of east and west Germany actually began here in Leipzig. They had meetings in the St. Nicholas church in the square every Wednesday, until they meetings were broken up. Finally, the people of Leipzig met in the square in front of the opera house and demanded that they be set free. Protests then started all over Germany and the wall came down, etc. It must have been so exciting in Leipzig to be the start of the peaceful revolution and the reunification of Germany.

We strolled down the pedestrian area of Leipzig and found dozens of great stores and places to eat. It was a great first day and we were excited to explore for our short ten days that we would be here.

We wanted to make sure to attend as many concerts as possible here - so the next day we went to the Gewandhaus to get tickets. That night they were performing Hindemith and Bruckner - two composers we were not that familiar with but we were willing to hear them. As I mentioned before, the orchestra worked themselves to death on these two pieces! The night was wonderful, and the music was glorious. We had great seats and tried to soak up the pieces as much as possible. They were modern pieces, so to speak, so they used every instrument in the orchestra, which was fun to watch. After the concert, it was an easy walk back to our hotel.

Saturday was devoted to discovering Thomas Kirche, the church where Bach was choir master for over twenty years, in the 1700's. To think that this church was still here and still vigorous in the community was just unbelievable. We happened onto a choir concert - the St. Thomas choir was not in town at the time, but they had a German choir performing that afternoon, so we stayed to hear them.

The church itself is not that imposing, though it stands majestically in a square all by itself. The German choir actually sang what is known as an English evensong, with some hymns and some psalms. They were really good, and the Rutter, the Stanford and the psalm were excellent. I was really impressed.

There were lots of restaurants all around Leipzig, so we tried several of them. The Indian restaurant was good and very close to our hotel. On Sunday we attended a string quartet concert at the Gewandhaus, in one of the smaller concert halls. These guys: first, second violin, viola and cello, worked away at some beautiful Beethoven. Again, we had great seats and were able to see their communication and their enjoyment of the pieces. It was a wonderful morning.

The weather in Leipzig was getting colder, but it was very sunny there. I began to realize that I needed a coat to get through the winter, so I went in one of the big department stores they have there and bought a coat. Jack had tracked down a stamp store to pick out something for our friend Rick, so we met at the pub across from the St Thomas Church, supposedly where Bach used to frequent. It is a very comfortable little bar, and it has great pastries as well. We ended up there many times during our stay in Leipzig.

We found a great breakfast place not far from the hotel. I was never sure what the name was, but it had a huge elephant over the entrance of the cafe, so that is what I called it. We went there on Oct 12, Jack's birthday, and splurged with a champagne breakfast. That evening we had a great dinner at one of the restaurants, Augustus House.

Later on in the evening we watched CNN as it mentioned that the Chilean miners would be rescued the next day, the middle of the evening for us. We watched Euro News for hours during the night, as they were covering the entire rescue live. What excitement as each one was pulled to the surface. It is one of my most moving memories of 2010. I wrote each of their names down in my notebook and watched their families wait to see them in the capsule.

The next day we visited the photography/modern art museum; it is a very interesting building in the middle of one of the squares - very modern and about five stories high. Inside, there are probably only about three stories, because each one was huge. A lot of times modern art needs huge spaces, and they have built this museum to house big exhibits. With so much modern art, the building is really the star and the so-called art is either weird or boring.

We found a great place to eat breakfast - don't laugh: in the train station. They have made the bottom two floors of the train station a beautiful mall, with stores and restaurants and cafes. The upper most floor is for the trains. Jack loves his bratwirst in the morning, and I am satisfied with a roll and a cup of coffee, so everyday but Sunday we marched across the street and had our breakfast. On Saturday morning we wanted to buy our train ticket for Dresden, so we went up to the higher level. We immediately noticed that there were dozens of policemen - everywhere. We got our tickets and our breakfast and walked back to the hotel. At this point, there were dozens of police vans parked in front of the train station. They had closed the streets around our hotel and lined up van after van along the street. We asked the hotel people and they said that the neo-Nazi groups had staged a demonstration for Leipzig, so the police were out in full force. They even had police forces and vans from Berlin for crowd control. They were not allowed to have a parade, just give speeches at the stand that was set up for them. All day long we heard the droning of the speeches, and lots of people milling about. Fortunately for the city, it rained heavily all day, so maybe that also helped with crowd control.

During this time the Texas Rangers were playing the Yankees in the American League Series to get the honor of going to the World Series. I got up early everymorning to get the score. Jack's cousin Marg, who is a big sports fan and watched each of the games, gave me a rundown of what had happened the night before. The Yankees always intimidated their opponents, but I was hopeful that the Rangers would be able to hold on.

One of the most enjoyable things we did was visit the Bach museum, right across the way from his church. It had just been renovated and it was beautiful. Besides being able to listen to any of his compositions on headphones, in a nice area with comfortable chairs, we learned a lot about the man himself. It turned out that he was quite a musicologist and traced a lot of the pieces that his family had written and transcribed them for posterity. He also did an extensive family tree and worked out the family history for many generations.

Our last day in Leipzig was one to just enjoy the city; we had breakfast at our Elephant House and then walked around to take in the sights once more. I had always heard of this city but never thought I would ever get here. It seemed so far east in Germany, maybe old and hard to get to. I never dreamed it was so pretty and so vibrant, and the people so friendly and warm. It was one of my favorite cities. Tomorrow we would travel to Dresden and experience its beauty, but today I was very happy in Leipzig.