Leipzig and surrounding area

If you are mainly interested in outdoor adventures and hiking I can't help you very much. But if you'd like to see what Leipzig has to offer from a cultural perspective other than Bach there's a lot!

• A great way to start a visit to Leipzig is by going to the City Hochhaus (next to the Gewandthaus). Take the elevator up and admire the views. It will give you a great overview.

• Continue exploring the historic centre from there. There are numerous shopping arcades called "Passage", some of them historic and quite unique. My favourite is the "Maedler Passage". You can also find a Glockenspiel made of Meissen porcelain there. And "Auerbachs Keller". That's a historic restaurant made famous by Goethe who placed some scenes of "Faust" there. It may be touristy but the food is decent, not expensive and the atmosphere is really quite something.

• On my last visit to Leipzig my first stop was the Nikolai Church. This is where the "Monday Demonstrations" started the "Peaceful Revolution" in spring 1989 which eventually led to the fall of the Wall. Half of the city's population and many from towns surrounding Leipzig were on the streets calling "Wir sind das Volk" (we are the people). If you have a chance to talk to somebody who's been there do so!

• Don't miss the exhibit about the Stasi (Secret Service in former East Germany) in the "Museum Runde Ecke". Absolutely chilling! It's run by a non-profit organization and free. There are very good audio guides in English available for a small fee.
  http://www.runde-ecke-leipzig.de/cms/index.php?id=76&L=1

• Leipzig has some of the oldest coffee houses in Europe. Check out "Coffe Baum" which also has a coffee museum
  http://www.coffebaum.de/

• Porsche has a plant in Leipzig and factory tours can be arranged (book in advance!):
  http://www.porsche-leipzig.com/default.aspx

cont.

• Leipzig also has some very interesting old industrial sites. Most of them have been converted into housing since reunification. Plagwitz is one of the more interesting areas. You can walk along the canals and contrary to 20 years ago you don't need to plug your nose anymore doing so ;-) The "Buntgarnwerke" is probably one of the most impressive buildings. I came across a very interesting website that gives some good background on the area. I don't know the company behind this but it might be worthwhile checking them out. We had my aunt and a good friend (he did his Masters thesis on the Buntgarnwerke) as tour guides in the area.
  http://www.architektouren.com/english/leipzig/tour_7.html

• Talking about canals, during the warmer months of the year you can actually get a gondola for a tour! The website below talks about the gondola tours but also has a lot of other touristic information on Leipzig
  http://www.ltm-leipzig.de/cs/click.system?navid=1611&jumpancor=ps3166&sid=c#ps3166

I second everything Beatrix has said about Leipzig. I'd like to add this regarding the "Hochhaus" - which is a modest skyscraper, and, I believe, the highest building in the city. There's a nice restaurant almost at the top and from there, you can go up to the roof terrace (they sell champagne by the glass just before you get all the way up there). The best time to for this is a clear, moonlit night, when you'll have the lights of the city below you. The Hochhaus is on the famed large Augustusplatz, with the opera on one side and symphony hall on the other. In front of symphony hall is the Mendebrunnen, a decorative fountain which survived the war in storage. After World War II Augustusplatz - this large square - was piled high - as high as a two story building or higher - with rubble from the bombings. A lot of the bricks were reclaimed, mostly by women workers in aprons and headscarves who knocked off the old cement with angle irons or what have you, to clean them off. (I know this because I saw it.) I'm sure you know about the Friday night and Saturday afternoon concerts at the Thomas Church (go early, people line up) and I'm sure there are lots of other concerts to honor Bach this year. Did Beatrix mention the Voelkerschlachtdenkmal - a monument to commemorate the "battle of the nations" who defeated Napoleon at Leipzig in 1813 (besides Germans from the various states, Austrians and Russians fought side by side.)

I didn't mention the Voelkerschlachtdenkmal. It actually would give you an opportunity for a "hike" as this is the largest monument in Europe and you can go inside and hike up all the stairs to the very top. That thing is rather ugly - and I'm not the only one saying so. But it is a very important monument. When I was there in Dec 2009 it was under renovation and some of it was not accessible. It's much nicer there when it's not freezing ...

Beatrix is right, the Voelkerschlachtdenkmal is ugly. However, the Russian Church nearby (commemorating the Russian troops who fell during the battle) is beautiful inside and out. You can recognize it by the golden domes or spires. By the way, there are some large parks for hiking and outside the city are a few lakes, some of them with boating and watersports. A couple of them are filled-in surface mines where browncoal was dug up in the not so distant past.