Here It Is!

Dateline-Leipzig, Germany

Hot off the presses, this picture, taken by me tonight of the famed Saint Thomas Church where Bach worked. Once I got my bearings, it was just about a 10 minute walk from my hotel, the Fuerstenhof, to the church, with a light freezing drizzle as accompaniment. Even in the dark, the edifice impresses. Walking around to the side, one meets the image of the composer, in a bigger than life size sculpture. Pictures of that (and more of the church) tomorrow, I promise!

Bach's "church job" was quite unlike any I've ever had. He was actually responsible for music in several churches in Leipzig all at once, and he (and his compositions) would rotate from one to the next week after week, and give the ability to Bach to pool his musical resources together for special services.

I was able to walk the short distance to the Nikolai Church...one of Bach's such other churcher, and another striking work of architecture (too dark for pics...tune back in tomorrow) before heading back to the Saint Thomas area for a german dinner of schnitzel and beer. Yum!

Just a couple more items for today, since most of the last 36 hours have been spent in transit. Flight from Detroit to Frankfurt was smooth, and the nice thing about the Frankfurt airport is you can catch your long distance trains to other German cities right there, without having to go into downtown Frankfurt and its main rail terminal.

The four hour trip by rail up to Leipzig was great, with stops every 30 minutes or so in numerous small (formerly East German) towns...lots of onion-domed churches to be seen from the window. We even made a stop in Eisenach, Bach's birthplace, as prominently noted on the station sign below.

Next, check out the picture of the arrival hall at the Leipzig train station...I heard someone say it's the largest in Germany.

Underneath the level at which I took that photo, there are three more stories of shopping.

Finally, I'll close with a picture of my hotel, right next to a lovely 19th century church, whose bells were tolling as I walked past on my way to the hotel from the train station. A fitting welcome, I'd say!