May 9-12, 2017
Leipzig and Luther
Sites
Tomorrow we head to Prague, so I want to get caught up on the
blog tonight. This will be about all things Leipzig and surroundings.
The last few days we have taken day trips via train to some
towns associated with Luther, namely, Erfurt, Eisleben and Eisenach. We enjoy
traveling by train in Europe because they are much nicer than the trains in the
USA, and most of the population gets around by train. The towns we wanted to
travel to aren’t huge so we took the regional trains which take longer due to
stopping at every little burg. We thought that we might want to see about
taking a faster train but when finding out the cost, €190 vs €32,
we stuck with our initial plan. As a side note, we have seen numerous plots of
ground along the train tracks that families have turned into gardens with small
dwellings of various types. From what we have gathered they are usually people
from the city who live in apartments and aren’t privileged to have a garden but
are happy to have their own piece of paradise.
Erfurt is a charming medieval town where Luther was ordained
as a priest, and was a monk for a time at the Augustinian Monastery and studied
at the University of Erfurt. After climbing many steps we visited the Cathedral
where Luther was ordained, and St. Severus church which is right next door. We
then found the monastery and were treated to seeing some beautiful stain-glass
windows dating back to the 1300s, and to the organist practicing on the pipe
organ. 
We then had to hurry and catch our next train to Eisleben,
where Luther was born and baptized, and died. When we arrived, we walked quite
a distance downhill (what goes down, must come up) to the museum. After touring
the museum and checking on the nearby church, we started our trek up the hill
to the station. It was a lot of work for a short visit.
Yesterday it was another day of being outside of Leipzig. We
traveled to Eisenach to see Wartburg Castle, where Luther was hidden for about
10 months. While there he worked on translating the New Testament from Greek
into German. This town also has some medieval buildings and is quite
picturesque, with beautiful homes situated on the hills overlooking the town.
The crown jewel, of course, is the castle, which we walked to, climbing some very
steep hills. It took all my will-power to make it up to the top, but I managed with
Roger’s encouragement. We toured the castle and a Luther exhibition that is
being presented there this summer, both interesting. We then walked down and
took the train back to Leipzig.
Today, as well as our first day here, we spent walking
around and visiting the tourist sights of Leipzig. This city is located in what
was East Germany, so architecturally Leipzig is not as interesting as some
other German cities, but this past generation has put a lot of effort into
refurbishing it and bringing it back to its former life. One thing it has going
for it is its strong history of music, art and culture. The University of Leipzig
has played a major part in the cultural life of this city to this day. 
We visited St. Thomas Church, where Bach was the choirmaster
and the Bach Museum where we learned about all things Bach.
We made visits to
the Stasi Museum, which dealt with the activities of the Security Police in
what was East Germany and the methods they used to spy on people. That museum
is located in the headquarters of what was the Security Police. Creepy.
We also visited the Contemporary History Forum which tells
the story of East and West Germany, 1945-1990. It focused mainly on the East
but there were some displays of the West to provide contrast. Interesting.
Today we walked through part of the U. of Leipzig and saw
one of the largest classrooms that I have ever seen. It must have seated 500.
Roger was impressed and thought of all the papers that came with that. I told
him that the Prof probably has more than one TA to help with the grading. Just
saying. Anyway, what we saw of the school, was very contemporary and
impressive.
Tonight, we found a sushi restaurant, and enjoyed some great
Japanese food. We aren’t huge fans of German food and have kind of reached our
limit of brats, wieners and pretzels, so it was good to have something
different.
No comments:
Post a Comment