a fountain too many?

I showed you this department store before. Curiously on Friday Feb 13th and now the worry is that the store belongs to a company that bankrupted itself by over adenturous financing and that it may close. Still the fountain which shoots up five storeys on the hour as a part of a music and water display is impressive.

Park gate

33rd Jazz Festival

I know the picture is crap but I was there to hear the music! The venue is also interesting. It's the Moritzbastei- part of the original fortifications of the city. Later it was used as a store and workshops and then after the second ww filled with rubble and forgotten till 1974 when students revived it. In Wiki it say that 30000 students (including Frau Merkel) removed 40000 cubic meters of rubble!

Since then it has been a favourite student's meeting point, good atmoshere and cheap.

next to St Nicolas' Church

is this fountain. Actually the water doesn't jet out, it just overflows tis super large stone basin. Kids love it. The blooms were just there waiting for me.

almost 20 years ago

This extra large mural has recently been finished as an unofficial commemoration of the events of 1989.

storm brewing

The building is actually our power station. The tops of the cooling towers are just visible at the top. On very cold winter days you can see white clouds coming out.

Schrebergärten

Early morning and still cool, a walk between the private gardens in the middle of the city.

Leipziger Alps

We've heard that this building site will soon be developed. The "mountains" are the soil removed during the pre_construction archeological dig.

dancers

imagine riding this bike!

Actually it's outside a specialist bike shop in the old spinning works that now accomodate a series of small workshops and art galleries

old and new

This lovely oriel window on two floors was probably all that could be saved, but set against an unpretentious modern background it's wonderfully accentuaterd. With good sense old and new do work.

nature strikes back

a few days ago I showed this stream in its new bed, now I notice that weed is building up in a way that never happened before - as usual despite our interferance nature retaliates. Good! After mankind has finished itself in a few thousand years (or less) the cockroaches won't miss us.

an olders child's fantasy

no seaside here

but kids still play castles.

not the beach

but all kids love it.

good idea!

This old sign is outside a disused printing works. But the motto is still a good one.

Read more,
know more,
be able to do more!

a bit of design

This small gathering of stalls occurred in the yard of an "ex" printing works (The Grafikhof) that is now rented to a number of small design and other businesses including a very neat herbs shop. The stalls had lots of nice artistic (and unique) jewellery, hats, accessories for sale.

If the postman can't deliver he can arrange for your packet to be left in this very high technology box. You scan in the barcode on the non-delivery advice, sign your name with your finger and a small locker opens.
I read that in England there is a proposal to leave undeliverable packets at the local pub.
I think low-tech is friendlier.

another special cafe

This place is really special, just the smell of the coffee!
Unfortunately the spiral stairs lead to a gallery that isn't open. There are only a couple of seats downstairs.

new roof at the zoo

Our zoo is getting a new facility, and its roof is slowly taking shape. Its going to be very large.

and here they are!

Self-Service!

Like many cafes here you can sit it (or outside) and enjoy a cake and coffee. Oppsite the were some guys playing classical music -more tomorrow

balloon fiesta

Every year there is a balloon festival just to the south of the city. This year , the 15th, the weather was difficult and so we didn't visit the launch. However, we were lucky enough to see these in the north of the city. I counted eighteen.

night over Leipzig