Leipzig

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Travelling on the high-speed ICE trains that they have in Europe (or perhaps more commonly known in the U.S. as bullet trains) has got to be one of the most fun ways to travel. The trains really do look like long bullets and it is significantly less of a hassle to travel by train too. You buy a ticket, get on and you are set to go. Once these trains get out into the country and on to their specially built tracks, they can really go! I would guess that we were going somewhere around 100mph on average and perhaps even faster at times. You are not going as fast as on an airplane, but are closer to the ground and it feels like you are going faster. That combined with the banked curves and it really feels like flying just a few feet above the ground. You also get a wonderful view of the countryside, which between Frankfurt and Lepzig is really nice and pretty. I saw four castles on this trip from the window! It is definitely a reminder that I am now travelling through an older world than what I am used to in the states.

I got to Leipzig miday on Sunday and after arriving at the hostel and dropping off my stuff there, I set off to see the city. Unfortunately it was raining rather hard and I had very little cash due to some issues with the bank, so there was not a great deal that I could do in Leipzig. Nevertheless, I tried to make the msot of my stay there. Luckily most of the interesting parts of the town are reight in the center, near my hostel. I started off at the Thomaskirche, which is where Bach spent the last 27 years of his life as cantor and where he composed some of his most beloved and impressive works, as well as most of his contatas. The church is not very large, but elegant and with a lovely inside. Out front is a statue of Bach that was erected partly due to the efforts of Felxi Mendelssohn who also lived in Leipzig for a few years during the 19th century. Unfortunately, although there are daily concerts of Bach’s music at the church, I had already missed Sunday’s concert by the time I arrived.

Next I walked down the main city street, which had lots of old half-timbered houses that Germany is so well-known for. It also had a really neat Townhall from the 16th century, that I cannot really describe its architecture. However it is really colorful and reminded me a little of a coo-koo clock. Next I hit up the Nikolaikirche, which was not only important in Bach’s day, but even more important in 1989 as the site of the massive protests in Leipzig that started off the fall of East Germany.

I dropped by also the museum of contemporary German history, which is basically about everything after the second world war. I was already pretty familiar with most of this history and did not stay very long and headed back to the hostel. There was not too much to do there so I went to bed early.

The next morning I headed back to Berlin. I should mention something about the trainstation in Leipzig. First of all, it is the largest trainstation in Europe (until Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof is completed sometime next year) and has something like 20 or 25 boarding platforms under a series of huge curve-beamed roofs. Then in front of the boarding platforms, is a three-story shopping mall! The Europeans do not seem to really have true shopping malls, instead they just make them part of their trainstations and airports. The same thing happens in Berlin, where the biggest trainstations are like shopping malls, selling everything that the traveller could want, and more that the traveller probably has no use for!

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