German railways and an encounter with the man himself.

Sunday 4 September - Anthony’s travel Blog

Last night around the table everyone was comparing notes about the cancellations on DeutschBahn and delays. “The train is cancelled” is a sentence learnt on my Duolingo. I said in the uk we always thought German rail would be well run. This was met with universal laughter! I hope I can get back tomorrow. To be fair DB have sent me at least 4 emails saying my train connections would not work!

Today we had a tour of the ducal palace from Mr Bach himself. He lived in Kothen for 6 years and had a productive time. The historian who showed us round we highly informed and good fun. It seems likely Bach wrote the Brandenburg concertos here before moving back to Leipzig. There is a collection of Baroque musical instruments here and we were given a listen to a 17th Century piano. We then trouped off to the Market place church for an end of festival concert.

It seems as if Leipzig and Weimar have done well for music tourism and quieter Kothen has lost out.

We were then given a typical 17th century meal by way of a farewell to the group. Us "Ausländers“ bought drinks for the locals to thank them for their kindness and tolerance for having so much of the tour in English and being so helpful to us.

It has been a great trip, at times more like a pilgrimage than a holiday. We have all got on so well and there have been cross cultural jokes shared.

I will miss it, but I am at the stage of looking forward to being back in Marnhull.

Wish me luck on the German rail system tomorrow.

PHOTOS: Herr Bach

St Jacob‘s church market place

17th century starter

End of tour photo.