Chemnitz

Well, we never planned to come here, but events brought us to this place. Chemnitz is/was a very heavily industrial city. It was forty-one percent destroyed during the war, and some of it wasn't rebuilt until after Reunification. It was the most stereotypically "East German" place we've been, mainly due to the apartment blocks, though we also saw some of those in Erfurt and outside of Dresden.

There are a few interesting looking museums, but we were tired and got a late start. Not to mention, we had a mission. We had to buy that suitcase.

Even after we got it, and put it in the trunk, we had already given up on culture. We decided to find the giant head of Karl Marx-- the city was named Karl Marx Stadt from 1953 until just after Reunification when seventy-six percent of the citizens voted to change it back. We also hit the Christmas market, which was in the Marktplatz and then spread out from there until it ran into the Medieval market, though they called it something else.

We made a visit to the Jakobskirche, which had a nice display of nativity scenes.

Besides the interesting museums we also missed getting a picture of the Red Tower, one of the few remaining old defensive towers even though we walked passed it several times in our search for the Woolworths. Which we also kept walking past...Read more