After a very comfortable 5 hour train ride from Munich to Leipzig we disembarked at the very modern Leipzig Hauptbahnhof. It turns out that all the very neglected East German infrastructure got rebuilt post reunification so their infrastructure is uniformly mostly of a certain age. It all looks very nice and from what Shar tells me, a heck of a lot more spruce up now than before.
Our hotel this time was the Radisson very conveniently close to downtown. It turns out that Shar’s dad left Leipzig in the 50s and that she had relatives still in the city. Right away on the first day we were made to feel very welcome as Friday (the day we got there) was the night that Ronny, Nicole and Helene all turn up to have family dinner at Heidi and Jurgen. After some puzzling through the very convoluted Bader family tree it turns out that Heidi is Sharon’s Aunt/Tante. Jurgen is therefore Uncle and Ronny is a cousin.
A Bader family dinner and a night out
We had a delightful very traditional heavily meat-based Saxony dinner and Jurgen stuffed me full then gave me some old Ossi artifacts that he had in the cellar for a while!! Score!!!! Then Ronny took us out to see what Leipzig looked like at night. What a great way to get introduced to this very cool historic city.
New Leipzig Hauptbahnhof – way less crowded than Munich – lower picture is what it looked like in 1990
Every Friday the Bader’s have family dinner. We were privileged to be invited. What a spread! Nicole and Ronnie
We are going to eat well! Jurgen is filling me up
Jurgen made a lot of this food. The blood sausage was unglaublich and I ate a lot. Ditto the polenta. Danke Jurgen und Heidi !
BURP! Figuring out the family tree, Heidi, Nicole and Ronnie
Now Jurgen breaks out his old Ossi stuff and gets me practising the march.! After seeing how stoked I am he gives me the belt and the hat!
Cool hipster Heipizig area
Use of fahrad prevalent
Old DDR kinder pictures in a coffee shop chockfull of DDR artifacts
Leipzig panorama – you can see the Alte Rathaus
This whole city was packed with 120,000 Ossis when the Nov 89 protests that brought down the East German government took place. Heidi Bader andRonny Richter (8 years old) were there for that moment in history
Monument to the Battle of nations, Leipzig. Comemmerating Germany’s defeat of Napolean in 1813. Built in 1913. http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Monument_to_the_Battle_of_t he_Nations