Beardmore Hotel Leipzig

The plan is from Berlin to Leipzig today..but, we haven't finished exploring Berlin. So, after up time around 8.30am and getting ready and having breakfast we load up the car and take it towards to city of Berlin to find a carpark close to the Deutches Historishes Museum and the Reichstag. The GPS comes through locating one just under Bebelplatz, and we park, knowing it will be 11Euro for the day..and out we get and off we go to the Deutches Museum.
The Museum is ...

... took about half an hour to get to the zoo. By this time, of course, the Swedish snake that Saskia had been desperate to bring with us, had gotten too heavy and lost its appeal. Martina wrapped it round herself like a mad scarf and we went off to see the black bears, pygmy hippos and penguins. We didn't have a chance to see all the creatures. It would have taken too long. We did see the baby elephant and some very cool lizards. The ...

Morning at the apartment, doing washing and diary plus trying to get a certificate for discount tickets to Blue Man Group in Berlin. There was seller on eBay but ultimately it was too hard trying to meet up with him.

We drove to the 1813 memorial for the Battle Of Leipzig (which we remember from Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture). We didn't find our way there at first, but spent a surprisingly enjoyable time walking around the gardens of the Sudfriedhof, a ...

... with JS Bach from the time he was cantor of Leipzig.

We followed signs to Mendelssohn's house but never found it. Helen was amused by the sign for a coffee shop, which used the green man from pedestrian crossings to say "never go without a coffee" - so we went in and enjoyed coffee and cake, plus their free Internet.

We caught a tram back to the apartment and bought some supplies for dinner. Having a kitchen certainly helps to cut down on the costs!

Today we drove from Nurnberg to Leipzig. It was a typical day - sunny in the morning and clouding over during the afternoon, but with a very cold wind. There was heavy traffic on the autobahn but it was flowing fairly well, except for a couple of places where roadwork reduced the traffic from 3 lanes to 2 - or even 1. We managed to cruise along at 120km/h to 140km/h most of the time. We detoured to Bayreuth looking for a spot to stop for lunch, but no luck so returned to ...

The Start of our Travel was the regular Train-Journey from Zittau to Leipzig. A not very spectacular drive, which we do almost every week. We wanted to use the time to improve our spanish skills but ended up talking to some carneval-junkies, boarding the train some 15 minutes after us...

... diesen Tag - ja fuer diese Anreise. Da ich ja ein par Minuten (o.k., sagen wir Stunden :)) als Sicherheit eingeplant hatte, galt es nun ein paar Kilometer den Main herauf und herunter zu wandeln, um die Zeit totzuschlagen. Einige Stunden spaeter auf dem Flughafen: Immer noch reichlich Zeit. Dummer Weise verpasse ich aber trotzdem den Zeitpunkt mich an den Check-In der Etihad anzustellen. Ergebnis: eine riesige Warteschlange. Damit aber nicht genug. Im Laufe der ...

Leipzig had one of the coolest museums we've visited so far: one dedicated to the operations of the GDR (East German) secret police, known as the Stasi. The GDR kept extremely detailed tabs on EVERYONE in their country, employing spies of all ages and collecting and filing all the information. The Stasi Museum (Museum an der Runden Ecke) was their old headquarters in Leipzig and has been kept as it was to show the oppressive nature of even the Stasi workplace. Very exciting and VERY cool!

... after 8 hours on the road. One of the most interesting things we did in Leipzig was go to the modern history museum to see the Division, Resistance, Dictatorship exhibition. It covered the period from the end of WWII to today. I had no idea that after the war the Russians used the German concentration camps to incarcerate Nazi members and anybody opposing them. Tens of thousands of more lives were lost ...

... in Europe, so its off to Aldi for some supermarket dining. This venture takes us from industrial park into suburbia. Every third building is abandoned, and these are grand imposing structures with classical features just waiting to emerge from the grime and neglect... but they will need to keep waiting some time yet. The first store we hit seems to have been staffed and stocked by people unaware the Wall has fallen, such is the mishmash of merchandise and its ...