The journey home

We left the hotel around 10.30am and had a quick drive around some of the parks in Leipzig.  We got back to the airport around 11am after filling the car with fuel and I 'fessed up to the scrape on the front nearside wheel trim.  Avis accepted the report and have said they won't charge for the damage - which I think is entirely reasonable.

Dessau, Bauhaus, Meister Häuser, Wörlitz Park

This was our last full day in Sachsen.  We went first to Dessau to visit the Bahuaus - its second location - having seen its first location in Weimar a few days ago.  The building has been carefully restored and is really very spectacular.  There was a very interesting exhibition and we took a short walk to visit the Master's Houses (Meister Häuser) afterwards.

Next we went and found St Johaniskirche in Dessau as it is twinned with Emmanuel URC in Cambridge (where Gordon was brought up), and Marienkirche, also in Dessau.  Mariernkirche was left as a war memorial for most of the GDR times (1949-1989) but has now been restored to its former glory.

Following Dessau we had a lovely walk around Wörlitz Park where the weather was lovely.

We got back to the hotel around 7pm and had our last evening meal of the holiday at Bayerischer Banhof where we had a huge, hearty meal and were glad of a walk home to help it digest a bit!  We had a final nightcap in the naTo bar again.

Harz Mountains, Steam Train, Brocken, Walpurgis nacht.

Today was the main reason for having the hire car.  We made an early start to get to Werngirode for 10am to pick up the steam train up the Brocken.  The trip took 1.5 hrs to get to the top of the Brocken.

We visited the museum at the top and and had a walk around.  This was all closed to the public and a high-security GDR listening post until 1989.  After a bockwurst and a drink we got the train back down to Wenigerode, getting off one stop early so we could wander around Wengirode through Westentor.  We saw people dressed as witches and warlocks in celebration of Walpurgis nacht (a bit like halloween) where witches are meant to dance on the Brocken.

Follwing this we visited Thale in the car where there was a huge festival for Walpurgis Nacht happening.  The queues for the cable car to get to it were huge so we didn't bother!

We popped into Quedlinburg on the way home and took a few more pictures but found nowhere to have dinner so we drove back to our hotel to park the car and went out for dinner at La Toskana Italian restaurant just south of Südplatz.  We followed this with a few drinks at the bar at naTO.