Our first full day in Leipzig began much later than expected, and it honestly felt like the day was already running out. Usually we have breakfast at 9am and leave for a tour, palace, etc. by 10am, but today we didn’t have breakfast until 10 and did not end up beginning our tour of Leipzig until after 12pm, which felt a little strange. The tour was great (and cold, which has been a consistent factor) and our third tour guide of the trip was wonderful. We met with her at the old town hall, and then we were off through Leipzig. She first told us about the creation of open ended courtyards, which I actually found very interesting. She explained to us that they were made in order to create ease in the transportation of goods. Rather than a cart going into a courtyard to drop off goods and attempting to turn around inside of it to get back to the street, there is another passageway at the other side that leads to the street over. Although this is seemingly trivial, it’s clear that city and street design is very important to the flow of travel and commerce, then and now.
Even though this information is more closely related to city and architecture design, which is not an area that I am super familiar with or specifically interested in, I am interested in learning how societies grow and work. It’s been really interesting to get some more in-depth info about the city of Leipzig, which was and is predominantly a city of commerce, which in turn means that it does not have any great palaces or castles, as many places in Europe do.
Something so fantastic about this trip has been learning things about the cities we've been to, other people (i.e.: great composers like Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, etc.), and about myself, that I had never expected. During the tour, our guide explained that the coffee shop right next to our hostel is actually the oldest one in Europe (which is often a tourist trap, and doesn’t actually sell the best coffee). There, Bach performed his coffee cantata, as well as many other pieces in a church that is about a 4 minute walk from our hostel, Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church). Following a few performances on this trip, most recently the Gewandhaus Orchestra, I’ve learned some things from the music majors that I am traveling with, which has been really really cool, and makes seeing an opera or orchestras perform that much better and impactful for me. Also, I have learned that I really love listening to orchestras play classical music, and love learning about the instruments that are played, which is great for me because I definitely won’t be bored for the next two weeks.
Main entrance (not shown) to an open ended courtyard
Large wooden rods were used in a pulley system in order to transfer goods from carts
Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church; found after the tour, adventuring through Leipzig)
View from our seats at the Gewandhaus
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