A World of Culture

Leipzig is located in the heart of the Saxony region. Founded in 1409, the university in Leipzig is the second oldest in Germany. The city boasts a 300 year old tradition of opera and other cultural forms. Leipzig also has an Olympic training center.

Leipzig was where composer Johann Sebastian Bach lived from 1725 to 1750. His fingerprints are all over the city.

Leipzig Zoo--Nothing like the zoos in America. This one is a lot older.

Central Railway Station--very large and impressive. Great architecture.

Streetcars

Botanical Gardens

Quick Tips:

If you speak German, be careful of the dialect around this area. All words that end in "ig" or "ch" become "sh" sounding. Like "Ich" is "Ish" and "Leipzig" is "Liepzish".

Best Way To Get Around:

The Leipzig Zoo is very old. I've never seen one like this in America. The zoo was founded in 1878 by E. Pinkert. It was a private zoo. Now it is open to the public. There's lots of animals to see like penguins, lions, flamingos and such. I liked the 'old' feel to it. The cages were made of stones and cement with bars around them. It wasn't a commercial park like in America where everything is clean as a whistle. It was more natural.

Have your picture taken with the 'Leipzig Lion,' a larger-than-life bronze sculpture. An international registry of lions is kept by the Leipzig zoologists.

There's a beer garden where you can sit in the shade and sip your beverage.

The Leipzig Botanical Gardens are beautiful. Outside there's a wonderful garden full of several different species of flowers and plants. Inside is a tropical environment. The botanical gardens have a butterfly house full of over 200 different species.

Walking through downtown Leipzig, you're certain to pass the rail station. It's huge and impressive. Magnificent architecture. It's the largest dead-end station in Europe. This means that it's the largest railroad station where the cars end, not continuing to other stations.
The eastern hall of the station was built for the Saxon area while the western hall was originally built for the Prussian State Railways. The construction took place from 1902 to 1915. It was further changed in 1997 to house a modern transportation complex for the 21st century.

When I visited Leipzig, I went with a group of high school students who lived in a small city south of Dresden. We hopped aboard the streetcar to make our way towards the Zoo. I had always heard about how stinky and smelly Germans as well as other Europeans can be because they don't use deodorant, but I hadn't had any experience with it yet. I'd been in the country for two weeks already. It was a very warm summer day and we were all sweating. Well, a noticeable stench was present inside the streetcar. If you can't stand the smell of sweat, then you'd better bring some perfume to mask the scent.

Aside from this, the kids were very interested in my life as an American high school student. I told them about my family. They were surprised that my school was only 10 years old while their school was over 100 years. They were most surprised at how many cars our family owned. This was just 5 years ago, only 6 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and Eastern Germany's liberation. On average, the family in Glachau (the city where the students were from) only owned one car. Some families did not own even one car. Our family owned five. "FIVE?!!!" They thought I was extremely rich because our family owned so many cars, but they don't understand the American culture where in suburban Kansas it is nearly impossible to even get to the grocery store without a car. An enlightening experience while riding the streetcar in Leipzig.