Bautzen – Walk in the old town of Bautzen

Tach,

The blog title was initially “A walk in Bautzen with Wenzel market”, but because we have so many Christmas market photos, I removed that part to its own blog entry with a short text. ( http://birrs-world.com/?p=4623 ).

We started out today at 11 o’clock and like well-behaved visitors, went to the local tourist information center. Ahem, “poor” is the best description. Lilija also didn’t want a new travel guide. I left while she continued looking for postcards. We didn’t have a plan or route that we absolutely wanted to work through. As already written, the old town is very small. There are many lovely towers here which can be visited and climbed but of course not at this time of year. And Bautzen is the “The Windy City”. I had to hold on to my hat more than once. There would certainly be more than a small gust up in the towers. Then that preferably during the summer. So looked at the towers from below. The city map from the tourist info center for 50 cents is enough. All important buildings have panels with short explanations. I like that a lot. One of the books I bought and one has a good overview. (There’s a short extra text on the books)

Our B&B in Bautzen’s most narrow building: Zum Handtuch (to the hand towel)

Clearly, no Bautzen without Bautz’ner Senf (mustard). So that’s what we started with. This became so much that I made that an extra blog. ( http://birrs-world.com/?p=4715). Then we walked through the Wenzel market.

We made a pitstop at a baker for a roll, a piece of cake and coffee (good that we had brought our own with us and made it first thing in the morning or I would have died a thousand deaths because there is no good coffee here at all). Then onward to “Wendischer Tower”,; from there, alongside the Hintere Reichengasse to the cathedral. We are in the land of the Catholics. At least an antique store and then two Christian bookstores. From there to Matthias Tower and the Ortenburg. The Wendische Tower was supposed to be demolished, but Gottfried Semper, who also built in Bautzen, campaigned for it, which is why it is still standing today. In Hinter Reichengasse I bought myself a new friend, a Christmas bear, which is sitting near me waiting for his name. (“He was There and Sat in the Garden”, by Edward Gorey and Rhoda Levine. Wonderful book.) I struggled for while until christening him Wenzel.

Bought in a bedding shop. What I already noticed in Görlitz, also in small west German cities: to a certain degree, the world is still in order here. There are still classic retailers for dishes, clothing, a wedding business, WMF shops, etc. all shops that offer more expensive goods and still exist. No pseudo department store à la Real or Globus has ruined them. Sachsen is also a rich federal state. At Ortenburg one comes through a narrow path in the city wall to the other side to a lane running alongside the wall, still “above”. The view is open to the Spree valley and the opposite side; below the dammed-up Spree roars, as if it were a wild mountain creek and has nothing to do with the sluggish, almost standing river in Berlin. Very beautiful. We returned from there and ate lunch in the “Bautzener Senfstube”. Lilija had goose and I had classic mustard eggs. With a beer from Görlitz, “Landskron”, a dark, yet light beer, and I had Selters sparkling water as always. Back to the Christmas market to film a video and take some snapshots. I stopped then at the chocolate stand.

The Christmas market is nothing special. I don’t know on the one hand. On the other hand, it sleek and very beautiful as a result. There’s of course one mulled wine stand after the other, original Thuringian, original Saxonian and original Hungarian mulled wine are available. One had 20 types from ginger to orange to with Amaretto. If the Christmas market in Spandau has a Finnish fish fraction, there is Finnish honey here. But everything pretty, even the art objects which usually inspire doubt due to the aberrations in taste, are pretty nice and not just low-priced junk. I thought this afternoon was pretty full for a Monday. I personally always like hearing and never enough Christmas music, gladly even in the summer. I noticed here: no Wham and similar stuff, hardly Sinatra or Dean Martin. The few American songs were the “right” songs but in a more unknown version, otherwise everything more instrumental or actually German but these were also not “rumsti”, very pleasant selection. And also at a tolerable volume; actually very low background music, which I also liked a lot.

We only missed snow.

Morjens