Today we traveled to Leipzig on a very crowded train. The trip took about and hour and I stood the whole time, but I managed to do the NYT Crossword, Spelling Bee, and Wordle on my phone, so the time was not wasted. When we arrived it was raining (and freezing) so we carefully made our way to our first stop, the Bach Museum. Johann Sebastian Bach spent a good part of his life in Leipzig where he was employed as Cantor at St. Thomas Church. The museum is well laid out, and we took a guided audio tour to learn about Bach’s life, his extensive family tree, and his glorious music. There were several listening stations, and we could have spent the whole day just listening to beautiful performances. The last exhibit demonstrated how several popular musicians have borrowed from Bach, including The Beach Boys, Paul Simon, the Beatles, and Lady Gaga.

When we left the museum, we headed straight for St. Thomas Church where Bach was Cantor for 27 years and where he is buried in the sanctuary. As we entered, the church was filled with the sound of its magnificent organ. It appeared there was a master class occurring in the organ loft and we were able to sit and enjoy it for a few minutes.

After lunch, we headed for the Mendelssohn House where Felix Mendelssohn lived his last two years. This house was restored by the International Mendelssohn Foundation which was chaired by German conductor Kurt Masur. The museum has timelines, manuscripts, and reproductions of the house’s furniture and decorations.

After a full day of museum touring, our old feet were saying, “enough already!” so we headed for the train station. The trip back to Berlin was also crowed but we managed to find seats. I was grateful that we had no evening event planned, so we could retire early.

Tomorrow we visit some museums in Berlin and go to the Komische Oper Berlin.