LEIPZIG 2016 (Jane-51, Pete-51)

LEIPZIG 2016

(gallery)

THURSDAY

Wave cheerily to Jacquie, Ben, Gill and Grandpa, and drive east into the blazing sun towards Stansted airport.
Arriving with a little time to spare, decide to visit the charming town of Bishop's Stortford directly adjacent to the airport.
Discover that Bishop's Stortford has as much charm as Sainsbury's car park in the rain.
Buy petrol. Eat picnic in sunshine next to children's playground. Be sniffed by and nearly wee-ed on by horrible dog.
Through airport reasonably efficiently.
Fine flight to Leipzig-Halle. Only 1 hour 20 mins in air, but light when setting off, and pitch black on arrival.
Lend charitable hand to young mummy struggling with two very young infants. Have warm saintly glow.

Discover that train service to Leipzig town centre replaced by bus service. Bus driver declares he is driver, not conductor - collecting fares is nothing to do with him. So, freeeeeeee!!! ride into town.
Easily find Marriott hotel. Use excellent german (like natives) to check in and install selves.

Out again instantaneously (11pm) to soak up night life. Find beer alley in Barfußgäßchen.

Many glasses of beer and red wine later back to hotel.
And so to bed.

FRIDAY

Up reasonably early.
Downstairs straightaway for refreshing early morning swim. Mum insists on messing around, playing crocodiles, mermaids, etc, instead of leaving dad to swim tediously up and down.

Finish swim.
Go for breakfast.
Be processed at breakfast entry portal by fierce East German shot putting lady. "What the *%<* do you want?"

Persuade her that our intentions are honourable. Are let in.
Enjoy plentiful, copius and delicious breakfast, with many visits to the front.

Out into the town.
First stop - tourist office. Inform selves with all relevant facts.
Then to the Thomaskirche.

See Bach's tomb. Pay reverent respect. Admire rest of building, if a little austere.

Over square into the Bachmuseum.

In entrance/ticket room/shop, while clearly second in the queue, be asked by serving lady, "What the *%<* do you want?". Two tickets for the museum, please. "16 euros." Here you are. "Well, I will have to serve this lady first!"

Mum pops to loo in museum café, which is part of entrance lobby/shop. On return, same serving lady admonishes mum (gently) for using the café loo instead of the proper museum one, as she had bought museum tickets not café items.

Into museum. (Door opened by nice smiley lady. Reminded of aunty Jenni.)
See free audio guides. Approach audio guides lady. "What the *%<* do you want?" Etc.
(You can redesignate the East Germans out of the DDR, but you cannot take the DDR out of the former East Germans.)

Ace museum. See lots of interesting things about JS Bach, the whole Bach family, Leipzig, etc.
Lots of manuscripts - actually actual Bach's actual real actual handwriting!
Good audio guide. Good Bach tunes all way round.
Good collection of weirde olde instruments. For example, a violine, which appears in Brandenburg Concerto no.2 (which Dad cleverly did for A-level.)

Excellent visit.
As we depart, see wedding party having their Agape in the museum garden. (Click here for adventures in Vienna for entertaining descriptions and depictions of an Agape.)
See Bach and newly reinstated Mendelsohn monuments on the Ringstraße.

Back to Thomaskirche for free gawp at rehearsal for tomorrow's motette concert. Baroque orchestra, full choir and soloists up in organ gallery. Good. Always a good laugh going to practices because you get to experience the real deal in a way you don't get at concerts. You see which bits are tricky, and which elements are important to the conductor/leader.

Leave.
Go on walking tour of town. Discover many Hofs and passages.

The Auerbachskeller is expensive restaurant, so admire from outside (again).

Nice walk round town.
Go to main art gallery, Museum der bildenden Künste.
Expect smallish provincial museum. Actually enormous, with three enormous floors each complete with enormous number of rooms and spaces. Work out which route to take.
Enjoy excellent collections. Bit of everything. Many proper paintings by many proper people: Brueghels various, Rubens, Ostaede, Weenix, Rubens, Honthorst, etc.
Good sculptures: Rodin, others.
Some good contemporary installations.
Take many excellent photographs.

Be told off by officious border guard room interpreter lady. "What the *%<* do you think you're doing taking photographs. Have you bought a permission-to-take-photographs ticket? No!"

Take some more photographs anyway. (Funnily enough, she seemed like a nice, ordinary person, just not questioning the illogicality of that part of her job. Ho hum.)
Good museum. Good visit.
March purposefully to the Nikolaikirche to stand patiently in the drizzle for 15 minutes for tickets to the imminent concert. Buy tickets. Go in.
The Nikolaikirche is ace. Decorated in lime green, pink and white in the style of palm trees.

Concert is with the Thomanerchor, the Leipzig equivalent of the Vienna Boys Choir. They are great. Loads of older choristors singing tenor and bass. One girl (just joined) in the front row. Lots of chorales and motets. Mostly Bach. A couple by Brahms, Reger, and a completely whacky organ piece at one point.
Video of choir practising before concert.

Usual daft sermon by vicar about Jesus playing football or something.
All required to be seated before incidental organ warm-up music is played, (Fantasy on B-A-C-H by Reger in this case.) And all required to remain seated for the whole of the organ voluntary at end, (Reger's Fugue on B-A-C-H.)
Stand up for prayers. Sit down for hymns/chorales.
Good laugh singing responses.
All round top concert. Good choice. Well done, mum.

Walk through rain to Markt, where next live concert in full swing. Geddit? It's the Leipzig Swing Sound Band! (Turns out they are off duty members of the Gewandhaus and MDR orchestras and the Leipzig Police Band! No wonder they can play.) Music is good - full on big band swing. Raining quite hard.
Choose position next to stage for a few numbers.

Then, peckish, choose cool outside table in cool pub at Markt end of cool Barfußgäßchen. Eat tea listening to music. Mum - spinach, ricotta and rocket salad with raspberry ice cream sauce. Dad - Thüringer Rostbrätel (pork chop and chips). Yum yum.

After tea/concert go for nice romantic walk round town.
Back to Markt for bit of geriatric Status Quo piped-in concert on big screen.
Go for massive ice cream.
Ice cream café closed, so straight back to hotel.
Just in time for late night swim.
Mum swims. Dad supervises.
And so to bed.

SATURDAY

Massive lie-in.
Eventually drag selves from bed and down for breakfast.
Same breakfast routine as yesterday, only this time with 10,000 more people. Still manage to help selves to copious amounts of cooked breakfast, continental breakfast, chopped fruit, yoghurts, fresh fruit, tea, coffee, and fruit juices.
Check out of hotel without incident, or additional secret charges, probably.
Commence exciting musical walking tour of Leipzig.
Variously discover Clara Wiek/Schumann's house, Wagner's birthplace, Grieg's holiday house.

Walk through Leipzig University (Goethe, Leibniz, Lessing, Nietzsche, Schumann, Telemann, Wagner, Angela Merkel). Be impressed by modern new buildings, especially the splendid church. Wonder why Coventry could not build a fantastic new church - same time, same reasons.
See statue of Leibniz (formerly of this parish).

Go up MDR skyscraper tower. (MDR is german equivalent of radio 3.) Enjoy splendid views over Leipzig, greater Leipzig, Saxony, Czech Republic on horizon, probably. Recognise all places visited. Boiling hot day. Very sunny. Great visibility.

See All Nations memorial (Völkerschlachtdenkmal, sometimes shortened to Völki) in suburbs of Leipzig marking the gigantic battle of the Allies against Napoleon in 1813 (Allies 1:0 Napoleon).
Huge chunk of modern history not explored on this whistle-stop tour. Make mental note to research properly later. Click here for interesting historical diversion.

Visit opera house and Gewandhaus hall. All on their summer break obviously.
Discover that J.S. Bach (formerly of this parish) is claimed by Leipzig to have started the tradition of public concerts, and that Mendelssohn was the first director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra to stand up and conduct.
Other notable performers/composers/conductors involved with the Gewandhaus have been Mozart, Wagner, Brahms, Furtwängler, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, R.Strauss, and Bruckner.
Go in the Gewandhaus lobby/gift shop area. Click here for interesting musical diversion.

Make full visit to Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's house. Listen to lots of music, go up cool staircase, conduct virtual orchestra, see good maps, children's clothes, letters, original manuscripts, actual Mendelsohn's study where he composed, death mask.
Be impressed by the many examples of F.M-B's abilities as a proper artist - oil paintings and watercolours.
Good visit.

Continue magical musical walking tour.

Visit Grassi Museum. Choose applied arts section. (Leave musical instruments and folk history for another day.)
Applied arts museum is massive, and ace. Lots and lots of interesting objects, clothes, knick-knacks, statues, teapots, cutlery, telephones, chairs, furniture, ornaments, drinking vessels, from ancient times, renaissance, right up to recent times.
Spoon exhibition.

Dad politely says hello to all border guards in each section, including ones who have skipped ahead and sneakily kept the same face.
In contrast to guards yesterday all today's are extremely polite and helpful. "Please enjoy this section, then I will show you where to go next." "There are some more pots behind this pillar - only if you want to, of course." "Please be careful of this tiny bump in the floor, we do not want you to fall."
Fantastic art déco room.

Many, many great things.
Good visit.
Leave.
Continue walking.
See the Schumanns' house, and the former Edition Peters printing works (now gone).

More or less finish tour now.
Into centre of town for massive ice cream at Leipzig's answer to Schwedenplatz, the Milchbar Pinguin. Mum - Erdbeer/Kiwi Becher. Dad - Jamaika Becher. Yum yum.

Boiling hot sunshine even now in late afternoon.
Treat selves to extravagant drinks in main Markt square.
On big screen watch film of concert from Schloß Schönbrunn.
Keep moving tables to chase sun.
Hand over arm and leg to waiter in payment.
Hop out of Markt for more sight seeing.

Pass by part of town (near Nikolaihof) where Leipzigers, and other DDR citizens demonstrated in 1989. Remember clearly contemporaneous reports on TV news. Today is 13 August. Note resonance of date vis-à-vis Berlin wall. Make mental mote to research events of 1989 more fully later. The fall of the Berlin wall and the opening of the communist borders - that was quite something.
Visit shopping centre near hotel. Buy drinks.
Collect cases from hotel.
Make way (300 yards) to Hauptbahnhof.
Catch train on platform 18A and three quarters.
Airport deserted. Ours is only outbound flight.
Good flight.
Nice holiday.