Collecting the Hire Car and Sachsen Therme

Today was another restful day.  Breakfast at Lukas near Alexanderplatz and then collected the hire car.

We took the opportunity with the car to visit Sachsen Therme.  A water park with just about everything you can think you might want in a water park.  Puts our British Water Parks/Swimming Pools to shame!  I loved the system where you have an RFID disk that goes in your locker key to open the locker and then the RFID is used to charge for anything like drinks, solarium etc. and on your way our you have to pay off the RFID before you can use it to open the exit turnstile!

We spent most of the afternoon at the Therme and then followed a rest back at the hotel with a nice Spanish mixed tapas dinner at Pata Negra.

Lazy day around Leipzig

We decided to have a lie-in today after all those train trips and then had a lazy day around Leipzig.  We walked in along the Karl Liebnekht Strasse and first got to the Neues Rathaus (new town hall) where we took some pictures both inside and out.

Then we wandered into the town centre and visited the Town History Museum.  There was a lot of fascinating stuff and we were in the council chamber where Bach had signed the agreement to be Cantor at Thomaskirche.  We followed that trip with an ice cream and then went to Stadtisches Kaufhaus - the former cloth exchange - and took a few pictures.

Following a few drinks at Cafe Apart we went back to Südplatz and had dinner at Acapulco Mexican restaurant.

Weimar, Erfurt, meeting Christoph!

Another train day - this time to Weimar.

We started with a trip to the Wiemar national theatre which is where the Weimar Constitution was agreed in 1919.  That's where the term "Weimar Republic" came from.

Next was the Bauhaus museum that showed the start of the short-lived but very important school of design and architecture.  Bauhaus really lived in constant battle from the National Socialists (Nazis) and closed in 1933, only 14 years after its opening in 1919.

Following this we me our friend Christoph Schmidt, who had stayed with us to help with the genereal election in 2010.  We had lunch on his recommendation at Cafe Residenz and it was very good!

After lunch we had a walk around Park an der ilm.  and saw the Goethes Gartenhaus.

Christoph then drove us to Erfurt.  We saw the cathedral, the Kramerbrucke, and the Augustinerkloster.

We were able to get a direct train from Erfurt back to Leipzig at 9pm that took about 1hr and 50 mins.

Wittenberg and Luther

We got another train today to Wittenberg.   Wittenberg is sometimes called the Rome of protestantism as it is where Luther did a lot of his thinking and challenge to established theology. He particularly challenged the system of indulgences where people could effectively buy the right to be sinful.  We saw an excellent exhibition about this and much more at the Lutherhaus and its musuem.

We also saw the Schlosskirche, and the Stadtkirche.  Luther preached in both of these and legend says that he posted his famous 95 theses on the door of the Schlosskirche.

We finished the evening with a Curry in Leipzig.  Such things are always a bit sub-UK standard but this wasn't bad at all.

Day trip to Dresden

We went on the train today to Dresden and visited the Kreuzkirche, the Frauenkircke, the Hofkirche, the Zwinger and the Neustadt (new town) area.

The Frauenkirche is particularly interesting as its ruins were left as a WWII memorial by the GDR so restoration did not start until after the 1990 reunification.  Frauenkirche reopened in 2005.

The Zwinger was built as a pleasure palace for the Sachsen Royal Family and is still a pretty spectacular set of buildings and grounds today.

We had dinner in PlanWirtschaft on the recommendation of a friend who had been there before.

Easter Sunday - Thomaskirche, Bach Museum, Art Museum, Batle of the Nations memorial

Another early start today so we could go to the Easter Sunday service at Thomaskirche.  It was really busy and the service went on for a long time.  It included a Back Cantata, "The heavens laugh! The earth rejoices", written especially for Easter Sunday by J S Bach when he was cantor at Thomaskirche.

Following a long service, and communion, we went and found a cup of coffee and then went on to see the Bach Museum.  There is some fascinating stuff there including very recent (within 10 years) research findings of more hitherto unknown music and scores.  Much of this would never have been available had it not been for the fall of the GDR just 21 years ago.

We found some lunch at Restaurant Paulaner - it was rather more food than we expected but nice.

Next we visited the large art museum, the Museum der bildenden Künste.  It's an amazing building, with extremely high rooms.  There is quite a lot of uninteresting (to me) art there but also some impressive pieces.

On the basis that there is no rest for the wicked we next got tram 15 down to the Völkerschlachtdenkmal, The Monument to the Battle of the Nations and specifically the battle of Leipzig in 1813.  It wasn't completed, however, until 1913.  It's the biggest monument in Europe and I have to say it's pretty ugly!

Churches, Stasi Muesum, Ballet!

A bit of a lie-in this morning but we just made hotel breakfast at about 9.50am.  Following that we went into the City and went and had a look around the Nikolaikirche to take some photos.  It has amazing architecture with pillars that look like palm trees!

Following that we went to see the Stasi Museum (the Museum in der Runden Ecke Gedenkstätte) which documents 40 years of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) and its deeply scary practices of monitor and control of people's lives.  I was amazed to seem some papers signed in 1989 (when I had just started University) by a person who was born in the same year as me!

We went to Pepperhouse for lunch and following that we went to Thomaskirche to take some pictures of the inside.  Then we had a rest at the hotel and in the evening went out to see the "Die Große Messe", an amazing Ballet at the Leipzig Opera House.  We followed this with a drink or two and a sausage for supper.

Good Friday service and Contemporary (GDR) history

We started our day with a very quick breakfast at a bakery and then went to Nikolaikirche for the 9.30am service which included the Shűtz Johannes-Passion.

Following that we had coffee and cake at a nice café and then we had a wander around Leipzig.  We went to see the contemporary history museum (Zeitgeschichtliches Forum) and learned a lot about the German Democratic Republic (GDR) 1949-1989 and how much it tried to control people lives and quash resistance and opposition.

Later we ate lunch at a little Italian place called Cafe Pascucci.  We shared a flammkuchen (like a pizza) and some salad.

We came back to the hotel fairly early in the afternoon for a rest.  In the evening we went and ate in a little restaurant close to the hotel called Lulu Lottenstein we ate fairly typical German fayre then went for a wander along Karl-Liebknecht Straße and finished up having a last drink in a bar called naTo.

Start of the Leipzig Holiday. Bach's Johannes-Passion at Thomaskirche

An early start from home with a 5am alarm and a 5.50am taxi to get the bus to Heathrow for a flight at 9.10am.  We had a change at Frankfurt and got into Leipzig around 3pm.   Leipzig trams are great so after a train to the Hauptbanhof we got a taxi straight to the hotel, Hotel Markgraf just south of the City Centre in an area that feels not unlike East Oxford.

We dined briefly at Johannes Cafe just by Thomaskirche before going to hear the Johannes-Passion at Thomaskirche at 7pm.  It was a great performance but a shame we couldn't see anything. 

We went for a few drinks afterwards and had a fairly early night.