Leipzig
Posted by Martin Orr on Sunday, 23 July 2006 at 16:43
Leipzig did not strike me as a very tourist city. The main basis of its economy is international trade fairs, which continued even in the Communist period. According to the guidebook it has two record-holding stations: the Hauptbahnhof where I arrived is the largest dead-end station in the world, and the Bayerischer Bahnhof is the oldest still-functioning station. However when I saw it it was definitely not functioning, closed for an underground station to be added.
There are two noteworthy churches. The Nikolaikirche was the venue for weekly peace prayer meetings during the 1980s and in 1989 was the centre of peaceful protests in the run-up to the fall of Communism in East Germany. J. S. Bach was choirmaster at the Thomaskirche for 27 years. I went to a service there this morning, although it was a choir-off Sunday.
Lutheran churches here are not as austere as you might expect (or as the one in Cambridge). They are decorated with paintings of Biblical scenes, churchmen or local mayors. Those which started out as Catholic churches missed the Vatican II reform of moving the altar forward from the wall, so the priest has to saz part of the service with his back to the congregation.
Now in: Nürnberg
-- Martin