Germany Archives ⋆ Page 31 of 113 ⋆ The Passenger

February 16, 2020February 18, 2020

MdbK

The Museum der bildenden Künste (or short MdbK) is an art museum at the city centre of Leipzig, Germany. It already dates back to the year 1848 but only in 2004 it could move into its current location: a large cube with 10,000 square metres of exhibition space between old houses. It is one of the largest art museums in Germany and has a lot of exhibitions per year: when I was there they had a funny social media exhibition in the cellar and a great exhibition of impressionists. But the MdbK isn’t a museum for contemporary art – it’s a continuous mix. Since its foundation, it collected pictures and statues and has a fine collection starting in the late medieval times.

February 16, 2020April 16, 2023

Katzentempel

I love cat cafés and this one I just discovered by the incident: the Café Katzentempel at Leipzig, Germany. In fact, it is a branch of a cat café chain with different locations throughout Germany – I didn’t even know that something like this exists. Also, it is the largest cat café I’ve seen so far and there are so many different cats living there that it was a real pleasure to watch them play around. The Katzentempel is next to the Grassi museum and not far from the Gewandhaus and opera.

February 16, 2020February 18, 2020

Grassi

The Grassi-Museum is my most favourite museum in Leipzig, Germany. In fact, it is a combination of three museums: one for applied arts, one for ethnology and one for musical instruments. The museum of applied arts (Museum für angewandte Kunst) shows design history from ancient Egypt and Greece until today. It is a mix of old and new, light is used in a fantastic way and the different epochs are explained very well. I even enjoyed the section for sacred art that I normally pass very fast.

February 15, 2020February 17, 2020

Next to the Nikolaikirche

The Motel One Nikolaikirche is in the perfect location: directly in the city centre of Leipzig, Germany, next to to the Nikolaikirche. It is an easy and pleasant six minutes walk along streets with art nouveau decorations from the railway station to the hotel. The old town hall, Auerbachs Keller and the Museum der bildenden Künste are just around the corner. It is a good hotel chain and I absolutely love their reduced design. The bar, of course, is called 89 and the decorations show scenes from the peaceful German revolution in 1989 – the way to German reunification.

February 15, 2020February 18, 2020

Sachsen-Therme

If you need some relaxation or want to do some sports at Leipzig, Germany, the Sachsen-Therme might be your choice. It is a spa in the city quarter Paunsdorf in the East of the city and therefore a little bit remote. Therefore, it has everything you need: a whirlpool, a flow channel, artificial waves, a sauna, an outdoor pool and a 25-meter sports pool. It feels a little bit like a copy of the Ostsee-Therme (Scharbeutz) and the Westfalen-Therme (Bad Lippspringe) if you’ve seen one of them.

February 15, 2020April 14, 2022

Bull riding

Getting to Leipzig, Germany, for a soccer match brings mixed feelings. If you think of soccer in the city you might think of the formerly very successful VfB Leipzig, the 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig or the BSG Chemie Leipzig. But of course, you need to discuss RasenballSport Leipzig or short: RB. It is an artificial soccer club founded by energy drink producer Red Bull and I really dislike the idea that a company producing drinks in cans has so much influence in the German Bundesliga – also superseding old clubs with a long history. But RB fulfils the desire of the people in Leipzig to see good soccer matches and as the soccer clubs from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) are massively underrepresented in the Bundesliga you might also find good aspects in this.

February 15, 2020February 17, 2020

Karl-Marx-Relief

Between 1953 and 1991 the university of Leipzig, Germany, was named Karl-Marx-Universität after the author of ‘Capital. A Critique of Political Economy‘. In 1968 the church belonging to the university (Paulinerkirche, inaugurated in 1240) next to the Augustusplatz was destroyed to build a new university building. There was no place for religion in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In 1974 a giant artwork called ‘Aufbruch‘ was attached to this new building showing Karl Marx and honouring him and the Marxism. It is 14 meters long, 7 meters high and has a weight of 33 tons.

February 14, 2020February 15, 2020

Huskies

For me, it is the first time that I’m living in a city with an ice hockey team. I’ve never seen a match so far but I had the feeling that as an inhabitant of Kassel, Germany, you should have at least once seen a match of the Kassel Huskies. As a soccer aficionado, I had to prepare well to somehow understand the very different rules. And I didn‘t regret getting to the Eissporthalle after seeing a great 6:3 (3:0, 3:3) victory against the ESV Kaufbeuren.

February 11, 2020February 14, 2020

Ghotel

The Ghotel is another hotel close to the main railway station of Essen, Germany. It is a modern and nice three-star hotel and seems to be brand-new. You can easily reach it on foot from the railway station and as there also U11 stops it is in the ideal location for visitors of the fair at Essen. It belongs to a hotel chain from Bonn, Germany which currently expands its list of locations (you can also find them at Hannover and Göttingen, for example).

February 2, 2020February 3, 2020

St. Petri

The Petrikirche at Lübeck, Germany, is a nice church dating back to the year 1170 CE and is made of the typical red bricks used in this area of the country. It was destroyed during World War II and served for many years as a lapidarium – a place where stones from other religious buildings of the city were collected. The church was rebuilt only in 1987 and as all of the interior is lost it is normally not used for religious services.