Tuesday, August 4th - Leipzig, Germany

After our late night we had a lazy start in the morning with breakfast at the hotel and then making plans for next week.  Prague is the destination chosen so it will be fun to go back there.  Eventually we took the tram to downtown and had a quick snack for lunch before starting our tour - the real objective of the day.

In the afternoon we went for a City Tour.  This involved a one hour guided walk through the old city and 1.5 hour bus ride to the points further away in the city.   The walk was great as we saw a lot of things that we never would have seen on our own.  We went to St. Nicolas' Church where the revolution started in 1989.  We didn't go into this church but the columns inside are incredibly ornate at the top.  We know this because there is a replica of one outside in the square as a memorial to the start of the peaceful revolution to end the separation of East and West Germany.  Apparently the news about free movement being allowed in and out of the country was first announced in Leipzig and that's when people first went over the wall (freely) in Berlin. There are small square lights among the cobblestone of the square and streets surrounding the church and at night these lights come on first one then another and then a lot of them to show the first step that was followed by so many on the road to freedom.  And the lights are all different colours to show that all people (young, old, black, white, catholic, muslim, etc.) were all part of the movement.  We went back later that night to see the display but waited until 9:30 when it started raining and then we decided to head home.  There is also a stone at the foot of the memorial column and it has feet imprints of all different sizes indicating that all ages were involved in the walk to freedom.

The tour also went to Specks Hof Passage.  Specks Hof is a huge one full block building of many stories and it used to be the trading floor for good.  Leipzig was at the intersection of railroads leading east/west and north/south so a real industrial centre and people came from all over to trade.  Originally they brought in all their goods but the businesses were limited in size, then the trading business grew and more room was needed and then, with mass production, they only bought in a sample so less room was needed.  The buildings have changed many times over the years and this was the latest version. There are high archways that crisscross the building.  The bottom floors were rented out so they could have money coming in year round.  The business fairs or trades were only held a couple times a year so they needed to keep the building occupied at other times.  There were market squares for fruits and vegetables as well but that was separate, and the sweets were also separated so there was a separate ornate building called the sweets market.  I would have liked that one.

We saw the Old Stock Exchange and the Old Town Hall on the market square, and then St. Thomas' Church and the Bach Museum, which I will talk about later.   The Old Town Hall is a huge building and very ornate.  It only took 9 months to build, which is hard to imagine, but it was built on the foundation of old buildings so I guess that helped to speed up the building process.  It has a open courtyards in front and at the back where many restaurants have seating and they were setting up for a concert to start in a few days on the one location.  

  

On the bus tour we saw many sports stadiums and lots of green spaces.  There were statues, ponds and fountains, and huge old homes.  The Battle of the Nations War Memorial was huge and impressive and we were sorry we couldn't spend time there.  Apparently 120,000 died on this battle field and are all buried on site.   This is where Napoleon was finally defeated.  We did manage to get back to this on Thursday for a more in-depth visit so more information there.

We drove past the opera house (where the tour ended), symphony hall and theatre.  Along the way we crossed several rivers and in one part of the city they are trying to be like Venice with gondolas on the channels.  The zoo sounded terrific to me and now I don't exactly remember why although it was something to do with each continent or area having its own bubble and controlled climate, which sounded unique.

After the tour we did some more walking around.  We first went up to the observation deck on the 30th floor of one of the university buildings where we had a great view of the old and new city and the surrounding area.  It was good that we did this after our tour because we were able to pick out places and sights that we wouldn't otherwise have been able to identify.

From there we headed toward the Bach Museum and St. Thomas Church.  The two are just across the street from each other and definitely go together because Bach was the cantor and lead musician at the Church for almost 25 years and his grave is in the Church.  The Church itself was founded in the 13th century as part of an Augustinian Monastery.  In the 15th century the newly founded Leipzig University took up residence in the Monastery.   In the 16th century Martin Luther preached in the church and held many debates (disputes they call them) over reformation of the church.  Mozart also played in the Church and Napoleon used it as a munitions store for his troops and then it was a military hospital during the "Battle of the Nations."  Mendelssohn also played a role in the church and helped to highlight Bach's music and make it famous.  Most of the windows in the church are plain but there is a memorial window to Bach and also one to Mendelssohn.  Over the years it has been renovated and rebuilt and expanded many times from Gothic to Romanesque to Baroque styles and combinations in between.  The tower is about 200 feet high.  The church ceiling, high and vaulted is about 50 feet high.  The supporting columns are white and the ribbing along the arches is a red wood which makes for a very impressive look.  Their motto is a place of faith, spirit and music and it certainly seems to fit.

While in Leipzig, Bach serviced three churches (at least that's all that we heard of but there may have been more).  He had to write a new anthem for each of them each week.  He led the St. Thomas Boys Choir which was and is apparently very well known and impressive, and they focus on Bach's works.  Bach also had to write a full cantata each month for each of the churches and he was also responsible for all special events and occasions for the royalty and elite who expected new songs for everything.  We didn't hear of any failures so I guess he managed it all easily.  Everyone thought he was very poor because church work didn't pay much but in fact he was quite rich because the royalty and noble men all commissioned him to right scores for their special events and he got paid quite well for these ventures.

The Bach Museum was small but very interesting and I did't actually get through all of it before the museum closed at 6.  The Bach family never lived in the building but rather lived just across the street behind the church.  The museum is in the Bose hose and the two families were friends.  The exhibits include everything from original scores to musical instruments to historical information on the period.  Parts of it require a lot of reading but parts of it are just listening.  And we had an audio guide to guide us through the various rooms.  My favourite room was one with musical instruments or pictures of them all around the outside of the room.  You listened to a Bach symphony and the lights went on for those instruments that were currently playing.  You could then push the button for one of those instruments and its sound would come through louder than the others.  It was amazing and a great way to find out what the individual instruments sound like and what they contribute to the overall music.  I was really impressed with this room.  

There was another room where they had an organ Bach played on and they explained all the pedals and stops and keyboards and that was interesting too.  This room also had large organ pipes hanging in the corner and if you touched a pipe it would start playing a different song from Bach.  That was pretty cool too until some kid decided that swinging on the pipes was more fun than listening to them - and of course no parental figures were around at that moment so I had to tell him to stop, which I don't think he really appreciated.  Strangely enough we saw the same family and kid several times that evening and he was always out of control no matter where they were or what they were doing. 

Okay, back to the museum.  There was a nice comfy room with sofas and headsets where you could sit and listen to Bach music being played and you would get a bit of a commentary with each.  In one of the final rooms they showed you how they dated some of the music and figured out when it was written.  That too was interesting.  Another room talked about his work at the school with the boys' choir and what his duties were.  Among other things he had to make sure the boys stayed clean, went to bed at the right time, etc.  Bach did not excel at these duties because he really didn't care about them so he often paid someone else to do his duties.  All in all, I thought it was a very interesting and informative museum.

Randy went through the museum faster than I did so he had a bit of a wait and went to have a coffee and appetizer at the restaurant we ate at last night, which was right outside the door.  Once finished, from there we walked to another restaurant to sit outside and enjoy our dinner.  On the walking tour we heard about a statue of Faust and learned that if you rubbed his shoe you would have good luck so we decided to check that out since we were n the area.  We found the statue quite easily and yes, I rubbed his toe.  It was apparent that many people had rubbed his toe since it was much shinier than the rest off him.

After dinner we walked back to Nicholas Church to wait for the light show but the lights never came on and it started to rain at 9:30 so we decided to head home before getting too wet.  We took the tram and got just a bit wet on the short walk from the tram to our hotel and then it really began to pour.  Our timing was perfect.