Saxony-Anhalt

Nils and I are on our first trip to Germany in four years. Our flight from Chicago to London was delayed, and we missed our connecting flight to Berlin. The plan was to rent a car in Berlin and drive west to Tübingen to attend Nils's cousin Claus's birthday. Nils had the brilliant idea to ask for a flight to Frankfurt instead, which would have saved us three hours, except for the fact that we were caught in a massive bottleneck (over 20 km of stop and go traffic). Once in Tübingen, though, smooth sailing: a delicious breakfast in a French café ("Tartes Cézanne"), a leisurely walk around town, coffee in Claus's garden before lunch at a ritzy restaurant, followed by dessert and drinks on a barge down the river Neckar. Tübingen is a medieval town in the state of Baden-Württemberg with a major university where Claus was a physicist. Nils connected with his cousin, nephews and nieces, while I did a lot of listening and observing. The next day, May 27, we drove to the neighboring region of Franconia in the state of Bavaria, to Würzburg. This is a gorgeous medieval town dating from the 7th century. We visited the Residence of the Prince-Electors (Bishops), an over-the-top Baroque palace that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Then we went to the 16th cent. bridge over the river Main, super crowded, reminiscent of similar bridges in Prague, Florence, etc. It started to rain, so we scurried to a tavern with beer on tap. The same day we drove to another state, Thuringia, to spend a couple of days at Weimar, a small town with an outsize cultural reputation as the home of Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and most important to the music lover that I am, Franz Liszt. The day started with breakfast at a lovely café run by a certified master pastry chef (Stephan Rose), across from the Gothic Church of Saints Peter and Paul, notable for a famous painting by Cranach (father and son), a Triptych depicting the Crucifixion. We visited Liszt's house and had lunch at "Zum schwarzen Bären" (there's an obsession with bears in this area), after which we headed to the Bauhaus Museum (the School was founded in Weimar). The museum closed at 6 pm, and since the night was young (it doesn't get dark until about 10 pm) we strolled through the beautiful Ilm Park, one of the numerous World Heritage sites in Weimar. Today, May 29, we drove to Quedlinburg, a 9th cent. town, one of the first to convert to Lutheranism, despite the fact that the founding queen, Mathilda, is a Catholic saint. King Henry I, the first German ruler after he kicked out the Franks (who had founded the town), became an emblem of "Germanness" during the Nazi period. The entire town was spared bombing during WWII and since its architecture survived, has become a World Heritage site (the third in a row on this trip). Speaking of the Nazis, their presence is inescapable. The famous "Stolpersteine" (stumbling stones -- bronze plaques built into the sidewalk in front of the homes of Jews sent to concentration camps) remind the living of the suffering of others. Now we are in Magdeburg, the capital of the state of Sachsen-Anhalt, a town that was destroyed during the war and became part of the DDR. A slab of the Berlin Wall stands next to a monument to German Unity erected after 1989. Today is Sunday and everything was closed, but we did some walking and saw the 13th cent. Cathedral, the oldest Gothic church in Germany. Tomorrow after breakfast we'll go in and see more of the town, after which we'll drive through the Harz mountains and head toward Goslar (more medieval stuff on the menu).Read more