Görlitz

Today, the eastern-most town in Germany. Not the eastern-most settled place, that's the village of Zentendorf. Görlitz began as a Sorbian settlement (Eleventh Century),and has been under German, Bohemian, Polish, Hungarian and Swedish control. It's part of Silesia: a German-Polish region that between 1815 (Metternich again) and the end of World War II was part of Prussia, then Germany. After the war, it was split at the Neisse River, with the eastern part going to Poland, today called Zgrozelec, (with the rest of Germany's former Sileseian holdings) and the western to the DDR.

Culturally, it's Silesian-German rather than Sorbian, though it first came into German recorded history as a Sorbian settlement. Another town on the Via Regia (that east-west trade route we talked about back in Leipzig and Erfurt), the town prospered despite being shifted back and forth (sometimes violently) among various overlords. Today, it's known as Gorliwood, as the town has worked hard to attract film makers. You might have seen it in various German movies and series, or in “The Grand Hotel Budapest” or more up Herr Hai's alley, “Inglorious Basterds”. I'm not much of a movie watcher, so it'll be the first time I've seen the place except on you tube or google maps.

In 2003-4 the bridge connecting the German and Polish sides of the town was rebuilt. Once Poland was admitted to the Schengen Zone, one can literally walk into Poland from Germany, or vice versa (thank you Boromir for that one).

There are a few interesting things to do, but they're not open in winter. which were built by wealthy long distance merchants to serve as a place for their business, but also in which to live and demonstrate their growing wealth and influence.

The city is home to the only synagogue in Saxony that survived Nazi rule, because on Kristallnacht, the firefighters wouldn't let the structure burn, despite orders to do so. Unfortunately, it's only open on Fridays for tours, so bad planning on my part. Looks beautiful in the pictures.

No pictures in the churches without a 2.50 Euro fee, and honestly, they weren't that impressive inside.

The suburbs, as I'd call the area, It housed subcamps of the concentration camp in Groß-Rosen, as well as sub-camps of Stalag VIII-A, which housed mainly soldiers from the British Commonwealth countries, Soviets (kept separately), and by the end of the war, some Americans. Didn't make it out there, far over on the Polish side.

We did cross the bridge, thinking of Basil Fawlty all the way, "You started it! You invaded Poland!" John Cleese might be a bit of nudnik in his old age, but he was funny back then. After a brief walk, a few pictures, we came back to Germany and ate pierogi and bigos. We couldn't find an ATM and had been told not the exchange rates were really bad if you tried to pay with Euros, so since both sides are Silesian, and the people we bought the food from were definitely Polish, we were happy.

It was, admittedly, a shortish day, better planning might have made it longer. Pictures are mainly of the various buildings that looked interesting, including the old department store used for Hotel Budapest. Still not reopened, which is disappointing. It's definitely a city in transition.Read more