Monday, August 06, 2012

Saturday in Leipzig -- getting a coffee

I planned to stay until about 5 in Leipzig. After I got I walked to a generic bakery to have an Apfel strudel and coffee for breakfast. There was a tram stop close to the bakery, so I took that to the main railway station. Leipzig has a zone system for public transport, so I thought I needed a zone 2 ticket. Unfortunately, the machine wanted to know which two zones from a list of 8 options. Anyway I guessed, but luckily my ticket was never checked, so I made into the center without paying a hug fine.

I had looked at Amazon for a guide book to Leipzig on the kindle, but amazingly most guide books are still in dead tree format, rather than in snazzy electronic bits. I did buy "Dresden, Leipzig & Saxony Travel Adventures" by Willem Bekker -- this was great, but had no good map in it. Luckily the hotel sold me a cheap street plan. It turned out that most of the interesting stuff was close to the railway station.
After I had explored a bit, I thought I should do a museum. I also needed a coffee, so it was natural to look for Coffee Baum in Leipzig.It took me a while to actually find the place, because it was on the other side of some buildings. So I did finally find the place after a lot of swearing. The building has a number of levels, but in the end I couldn't be bothered with the museum, but just sat out in the sun and drank a coffee (with some booze in). My guide book said it was the oldest coffee shop in Europe, but that there is a French cafe which claimed to be older, but ....
Lots of famous people have drunk coffee their -- well they can add me to the list.