[Take your pick of Bach's Brandenburg concertos.]
I have 20,000 kilometers per year available under my lease for Hudson. His "birthday" is coming up at the beginning of May, yet I realized that I hadn't even tipped 10,000 kilometers. Miles are a terrible thing to waste.... So I decided it was time to begin taking longer roadtrips. Looking at my map (a colleague gave me a huge one that I have now hung in my hallway, which I love, but is probably not very aesthetically pleasing, as evidenced by said colleague's wife refusing to let him hang the map in their home -- but since I don't have a wife....), I randomly decided that it was time to visit Leipzig. This selection was based primarily on two considerations -- the up-and-back drive seemed doable in an overnight trip and Leipzig happens to have a Luxury Collection property from Starwood that seemed a steal at €125/night. All that, plus a colleague was also up for the adventure and not dissuaded by my disclosure that I have a navigation system and driving tour book, but I might divert course at anytime if something of interest arose.
We left Saturday afternoon and, despite predictions of rain, it was a beautiful, sunny day and perfect driving weather. Our first stop along the way was Wartburg Castle. If you put on your Christian history cap, you may recall this as the place where Martin Luther hung out after being excommunicated by the pope. I didn't realize that he translated the New Testament into German here as well. It is on the top of a ridge and a nice drive up there, followed by a walk to the to that is both breathtaking and leaves one breathless with the steep climb. Really beautiful views all around. Nice grounds, though part of the castle was under construction and neither the tower nor the baths areas were open. There are also some cannons along the wall, which one of the Sarah Palin action figures could not resist (who DOESN'T want to ride the war machine?)
It was a bit chilly, so we ducked into the little restaurant/coffee shop for some kirschkuchen (cherry coffeecake) and some coffee. It was a quaint place, but quite packed. Anyway, the waiter asked if we were Americans. We confirmed that we were and a short while later he came out and planted a red, white and blue flag/pennant on our table. We were unclear whether it was to mark us clearly as the non-German in the room or as a gesture of welcoming, but chose to believe the latter. Nevertheless, the other patrons looked at us a bit strangely. We decided to milk it for all it was worth and had our picture taken there for the true tourist experience.
Wartburg is located in/next to the town of Eisenach, so we took a quick stroll through the town since we were there. Unbeknownst to us, this is said to be Bach's birthplace. There is both Bach Haus where he was allegedly born (and which is now a museum), next to which has been constructed a new and quite modern-looking Bach museum designed by a student of Frank Gehry. Who knew? Alas, it was getting late in the day and both venues seemed to be closed. But the musical features didn't end there. No-sirree-bob. The big church in town was hosting that night a World Gospel Tour concert and another place was hosting an All-80s party that began at the same time. Such options were just too diffcult for us to choose between, so we choose to continue the still-long roadtrip to Leipzig.
Now, I love Hudson and his/her navigation system. But they are in no way infallible. For example, we were to take the A4 autobahn (not to be confused with the excellent Audi vehicle of the same name) for part of the journey to Leipzig. Except there was construction. And a brand new section of road. For whatever reason, the A4 just seemed to end in construction at one point with no way to proceed and no detour noted. Hmmm.... Fortunately, my driving tour book had some paper maps in the back and I was able to point Hudson in a different direction that linked up with the A4 later. But part of that new section of the A4 was not apparently in Hudson's navigation system. He noted that we were "offroad" and started kind of freaking out, something like Robot on "Lost in Space" when he starts just flailing his arms about saying, "Danger, Will Robinson, danger!" Except Hudson just kept saying in German something in the way of, "Seriously, it is ill-advised for you to be cruising at 180 kph offroad. You should turn aroud and get back on the highway. NOW!" I guess I need to contact the dealer and see what the process is for getting his maps updated.
Leipzig was nice and I really enjoyed the hotel, the Hotel Fürstenhof, which upgraded me to a nice junior suite. I did not have the chance to see their indoor pool, but it really looked nice online and my colleague confirmed that it was also quite nice in person. Instead, I took an exploratory run around the city in the rain the next morning, which was not quite so pleasant as a swim in the pool, I suspect.
You may recall how much I love Mexican food and the difficulty I have had in finding some over here. So imagine my delight when I saw a reputable-looking place called "La Enchilada" across the street. Oddly enough, though, the menu in the window did not include any, um, enchiladas. Such a tease....
There were quite a few interesting sites to see, but the most memorable was nowhere to be found on the city map. I was roaming around and thought I heard seeing some people singing. Hmmm... I went to investigate. It was a Cossack Choir. Not joking. Guys dressed up in some interesting uniforms of a sort and singing with much gusto. So much so that I actually bought their CD, which unfortunately contained more Russian Orthodox hymns than the things they were singing live, which were more akin to a soundtrack you might expect for a Russian submarine saga or something.
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