December 2016

Citytour

After getting settled, we met in the lobby for our two-hour bus tour of the city. Our guide Christel wore a traditional outfit to match our historic bus and introduced us to the beautiful sights of the city in the typical local dialect. Our tour led us past the "Thomaskirche" which was home of Johan Sebastian Bach and has had a very famous boys choir for more than 800 years. We then continued on to the new town hall, the Gewandhaus, past the beautiful train station and the Westin Hotel which is a hotel built by the Japanese during the time Germany was divided. Then we drove on to the part of town called Gohlis, past the famous Zoo, and then stopped outside the house where Friedrich Schiller used to live for a quick peek. Our tour then took us further through a residential area of the city called "Waldstrassenviertel" where all houses were built in Wilhelminian style and they are all still intact and looking very pretty. Many of the houses have little towers and gazebos which the men used to build for the wives back in the days when women couldn't go out on the streets alone. Sitting in their gazebos drinking tea with their friends, they could watch what was going on outside. A beautiful part of the city which is perfect for just walking around. We then continued on to the Arena Leipzig and the soccer stadium of RB Leipzig, a team that made it into the first division (1. Bundesliga) in 2016 and has had a very successful season so far. Afterward, we drove to the south of the city where we saw glimpses of the musicians quarter, Plagwitz and its waterways, the Karl Liebknecht Straße which is famous for its nightlife and of course the big monument that is the "Völkerschlachtdenkmal" which is 91m high and remembers the fight outside of Leipzig in October 1813 which led to Napoleon's defeat. On this two-hour tour, we got a taste for the city and all of us definitely want to come back to explore it in much more detail. So much to do, see and discover!