Bicycle bells and Kuchen

Tuesday 30 August - Anthony’s Travel Blog

I could write a whole paragraph on today’s breakfast that even surpassed yesterday’s.

Our first trip today was to the Heinrich Schutz museum, it was well laid out with period instruments and opportunities to listen to his use of lyrics and fitting music to them. Then a short organ recital of which the last piece was “Land of Hope and Glory”. All the Germans knew of this and the words, I heard it played by a distant brass band on Sunday. I did not know the German word for jingoistic so I kept quiet.

On our first stop we had a food top-up and our second practice of the “Bach by Bike” round which went reasonably well. I am not sure what Bach would have felt about the bicycle bell accompaniment in the pauses in the first line.

I seem to be asked often about English word usage and semantics; nobody knows my English O level results and that is probably as well. The first time was about what the difference was between waste, litter, rubbish and trash. The next was a discussion about the English equivalent of a chateau amd when you use “castle”.

We cycled to Weiderau where JSB and musicians played a cantata for the owner of the now newly restored chateau there. We then were given lunch by the church wardens wife which included an amazing poppyseed Kuchen. To great excitement of all especially the French dentists.

Today’s cycling was flat, though villages and huge fields made through the collectivisation of farms in the post WW2 period.

So now in Leipzig, we will have a walking tour tomorrow and spend time in the Bach museum. Leipzig has a real student filled buzz.

Marieke has orchestra practice tomorrow so Anna Luise (mezzo soprano) will cycle with us to Halle Thursday.