Continuing our trip: Leipzig and Dresden

The next day (Thursday the 21st) we toured Leipzig. We bought a day card, so we were able to take the metro first to the main train station, then to the places that were further away. The inner city was the center of most of our sight seeing- it held the Bach museum, several churches, and the city halls. This was definitely going to be our Bach day.
Our first sight was St. Nicholas' Church. It was one of the primary churches in the city, the one at which Bach primarily played, though he is buried in another city church, St. Thomas'.

The pillars and ceiling reminded me of St. Paul's- Fort Wayne- it looked like plants were growing from their top and growing into the ceiling.

This remembered Bach's position at St. Nicholas'

Leipzig University was just next door, so we took a quick look, though all of the buildings had been renovated and looked like a normal university. This was where C.F.W. Walther had graduated from, as well as Goethe, Nietzsche, and Angela Merkel. There wasn't much, so we walked further to the old city hall. Here was a monument to Goethe, the famous German poet; I think he's buried here.

But from there we visited the St. Thomas' church and the Bach museum, which was close by. Although Bach primarily played at St. Nicholas', he was buried in a small church on the outskirts of Leipzig. When it was bombed or burned to the ground, they moved his coffin to St. Thomas', where it remains today.

We got some nice pictures of the stained glass windows with Mom's camera.

We didn't get many pictures from inside the Bach museum, but it was definitely worth our time- probably in the top 5 of the places that we visited in Germany! If you ever find yourself in Leipzig, you should definitely plan on a few hours here.

We did get a picture of an organ that Bach himself probably played. It's pretty dilapidated, but they restored as much as they could, pointing out what was original and what wasn't.

Finally, we took the tram to the Battle of the Nations Monument. The Battle of the Nations occurred near Leipzig in 1813. Since this year is its 200th Anniversary, it was under construction, since they're hoping to have it beautiful and ready for the summer. The Battle of the Nations was a battle in which Napoleon and his Rhine Confederation were stopped by the Prussian, Russians, Swedes, and Austria. Involving 600,00 soldiers on both sides, it was the largest battle in Europe prior to WWI. Napoleon had been recovering from his failed Russian campaign, and his army was not the same that had conquered most of Europe. After his defeat here, the Prussians and friends pressed the attack, invading France and sending Napoleon into exile to the Island of Elba. If you know your history, Napoleon returned and was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, again going into exile, this time dying there in 1821. After this Prussia exerted much more influence over the surrounding German states, eventually bringing them all together, after wars with France and Austria, into the "Germany Empire." So there's your history lesson for the day. It's a very quick overview, but it's very interesting as it relates to the build-up to the world wars.

We ate at a very nice restaurant in Leipzig just outside of St. Nicholas'- we had a plate full of different kinds of meat and wurst that we could pick and choose as we wanted. It was all very delicious.

From there we took the train to Dresden, where we stayed at Pastor Andreas Rehr's guest apartment near the parsonage. We didn't spend much time with them in the evening, but we had a wonderful breakfast with him and his wife, and Pastor even showed up around his church, which is the largest church building in the SELK (on permanent loan from the State Church of Germany). I've taken some pictures of this church before, but you can see it again here.

We left our bags there, planning to pick them up later, and walked through Dresden. Our first and primary stop was the Frauenkirche, and it certainly didn't disappoint. This time we were able to actually go inside- if you remember, the last time I was in Dresden there was a concert, so it was closed to tourists. Unfortunately a woman pastor gave a message while we were there, and I wasn't too pleased with what I understood.

And here's the porcelain "Procession of Princes"

It was bitterly cold while we were there, though- the wind whipped up from the river and chilled us to the bone. We were glad to go inside when we could. This was probably the coldest day of our trip.

Here you can see the Dresden Opera; we didn't go inside.

The Catholic "Hofkirche," or "Palace Church"

After sightseeing in Dresden we met up again at the Rehr's, got our luggage, said good-bye, and found the train that we needed to be on. It was a "Euro-city" train, and it was packed. Luckily I had reserved seats, so we didn't need to find seats where there weren't any. We got into Berlin and took the various trains to Köpenik and the Müllers, where we stayed for a few nights. I'll pick up on that in the next blog post.

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