A Lank Mans Adventures In Deutschland – Part 3, The Final Installment

OK, I better finish writing about my 9 days trip to Germany before I forget all about it. Plus, at the end of the first two rather boring installments I kept teasing that there would be something interesting in the next installment, so now I have to deliver…..

Saturday in Leipzig I went to visit the Spinnerei, which is the site of the largest cotton spinning factory on the European continent that was built at the end of the 19th century. It eventually became a socialist dream where workers had every need taken care of. They lived, worked, ate, slept, were cared for and raised children all on the site of this mammoth factory. They also were spied on and killed for dissent. The site was amazingly large and has now been taken over by artists and turned into a giant art incubator. Galleries from all over the world have opened at the Spinnerei. To that point I walked into the Pierogi Gallery only to see a guy wearing Strand Books T-Shirt (miles of books!) and it turns out that he was from Brooklyn and his gallery had opened a second location in Leipzig. Who knew? The art was very modern and at times quite graphic, but very fascinating. Because of the sheer size of the grounds, many of the galleries were enormous. One artist recreated a bus terminal from socialist Romania in his space, it was quite impressive and the setting suited it perfectly. The other interesting piece was reading the brigade books from the socialist workers. The books were like year books that they created themselves, full of everything from mundane details to pro GDR propaganda, it was living history. As a side note, the name is derived form Spinner as in, cotton spinner. But the word spinner with a slightly different emphasis is slang for a madcap person. Spinner became my nickname with some of my new friends from Leipzig. There was also an interesting occurrence with a fig one evening that garnered me another nickname, but we won’t go into that here.



Saturday evening we had an amazing dinner at Auerbachs Cellar in the Mädler Passage in Leipzig. Auerbachs Cellar is one of the settings for Goethe's "Faust." And one of the locations that Goethe actually wrote Faust. Again living history, it was quite amazing. Auerbachs plays off this heritage, with an actor dressed as Mephistopheles who retells the story of Faust with the assistance of a series of murals painted on the ceiling of the cellar we dined in. Through the telling of the tale we learn of the magic potion in Faust that will give you vitality, good looks and long life if you drink it. We then climbed further into deep caverns below the Leipzig city streets to drink of the magic potion. As the story of Faust goes, if the potion works, you will also have to power to levitate. So once the potion was drunk, and we climbed up from the secret cellar, if it worked you should be able to levitate on top of a large wine cask in the room we dined in. Needless to say I was the first to try out the potions effects. I’ll let the pictures tell the story from there. This was one of my favorite stops on my journey through Germany. It was a very unique experience and I was in the site where one of the great works of fiction was created – and then got to relive it. Very cool experience….

Sunday was my last day in Germany and I spent it in Dresden walking through the city streets of this once decimated town. While I was there the city was celebrating its 800th anniversary with a month of parties, music, food, street fairs and yes, beer. It was fun to hear the band playing traditional German polkas and waltzes along side Dixieland! I toured the Frauenkirche, built in 1749 and was destroyed, along with nearly 90% of the rest of the city of Dresden during allied fire bombing in February 1945. The church has been completely rebuilt using the rubble from the original church. In fact the destroyed church sat in a pile for over 40 years until West Germany offered to help the East Germans rebuild it. What followed was an international effort of individuals to rebuild this church. The bells in the spire were actually donated by the British Government. In the picture you can see small sections of the church that are much darker - this is where original material was used. I also saw an amazing Rodan exhibit in Dresden and walked through a castle. Most of my afternoon was spent eating and drinking and walking along the banks of the Elba River.

After Dresden we went up the Elba River to a beautiful part of Saxony and an amazing vineyard owned by a prince of Saxony. I got a tour of the wine making facilities and the princes “castle”. Interesting thing about this prince, he land was seized in the 1940’s and he did not get a chance to buy it back until 1990. I learned from a Leipzig friend that anyone who lost land to the Nazi’s was given the opportunity to reacquire it at no cost, unless you had aided the Nazis, then you had to petition the government for the right to purchase it back. So apprently the good prince was a bit of a Nazi – the nice woman from the vineyard failed to point this out! After a walk through the castle I headed to the actual vineyard. The vineyard was set high on a bluff overlooking the Elba River and across the river was one of the most spectacular castles I’ve seen (and made the Nazi princes castle look like a grotto shack!). The setting was perfect, there was a small cottage on the edge of the vineyard where I got to drink glass after glass of amazing wine and eat cheese, and fresh bread. I really did not want to leave! Near the end of the day I walked down the rows of grape trees and laid down in the grass just to soak up the sun and the moment. Unfortunately I have no pictures from the vineyard as my camera batteries died – but I did come home with plenty of good wine and memories!

The next morning I flew to Frankfurt and then on to beautiful Newark New Jersey! I must tell you, after laying in the grass at that vineyard as my parting memory, landing at Newark, when the temperature was nearly 100 made me wonder why I ever left! I’ll be back in Germany in October and I hope to find some time to get out and explore again. But before that, Beijing!

Auf Wiedersehen