Herbstferien Antics 2. Leipzig

I have been completely useless at updating people on what I got up to over the autumn holidays! Here's a few more tasty morcels...hopefully.

Here is the Thomas Kirche where Bach composed many of his cantatas and had his works first performed here. There isn't much to it on the inside in that it isn't ornately decorated, but there is a memorial to Bach and flowers are laid on it daily.




And here's the man himself... looking very dour.

I have to say that I found Leipzig to be a really interesting place to visit. It was quite fascinating (in a geeky way) to see where Goethe stopped for a few pints and where he is supposed to have come up with a few ideas for Faust.
Oh and did you know that Bach wrote a song about coffee? I kid not. I have it from the coffee museum in Leizig (which was also very very cool because it was also still a cafe and all the way around the museum I could smell cake and coffee, yum) that in order to discourage his students from drinking too much coffee he thought he'd write a song about it! And you thought all these stuffy old composers where out of touch eh? Still, he probably had a point...



So, you've probably realised by now that I quite like looking at interesting buildings. I admit I am a bit geeky in that way. There's just so many cool things to look at in Germany. Nearly every little town has its own Town Hall, which generally tend to be really really old and often with lots of brightly coloured stripes, pictures of ancient knights, even gargoyles sometimes. Quite imaginative and sometimes a bit fairy-tale-ish (Volksmärchen is just a much better word, sorry) I've seen loads of dancing men -not literally of course, that practise was banned in 1982- on the tops of rooves and quirky ornamentations, not to mention that there seems to be a turret-frenzy. It's quite weird seeing the very modern against the incredibly old, especially all in one house!

Anyway, here's the Rathaus in Leipzig. Not the best picture I think but it'll have to do folks. It was so massive and there was so much construction work going on that I couldn't really get a shot of it from farther away.

Here's the main high street. Cold, wet, not ideal weather for city touring but it made for a good excuse to sit in a cafe with my friend Vicky for an hour or two and sup coffee whilst savouring the delights of a humungous slice of german cake.









This was painted all the way across a massive wall next to a car park. This one depicts the fall of the Berlin Wall. The rest of the painting depicted Martin Luther and the march on Washington during the Civil Rights Movement and also something random with a hot-air balloon which I think was meant to stand for unity. My memory fails me now, that's what happens when you post things weeks after the event!

Finally, the river in Autumn.