Plauen

Last spring, after I spoke at a software developer conference in Berlin Germany, I had the opportunity to take several personal days and I got to see some of the countryside!  It was pretty great!

Plauen Germany is where my grandfather, Kurt William Leucht, lived from about the age of 4 until he left for America at age 18.  Here are some more sights from Plauen as I explored the area and walked in my grandfather’s footsteps.

Johanniskirche (St. John’s Church)

St. John’s Church is located in downtown Plauen, right off the market square that’s adjacent to the Altes Rathaus or City Hall. It’s a big beautiful Gothic hall church sitting up on a rise. It’s been rebuilt and remodeled several times over its lifetime.

It’s the main Protestant church in town and it’s also the oldest church in town. It is one of 716 parishes which make up the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony.

It’s quite breathtaking inside. It feels very spacious and open. This photo was taken from the entrance looking towards the altar in the far chamber. The blue speaking pulpit can be seen on the left.

This photo is the reverse angle looking back towards the entrance and up at the organ in the balcony. The organ is steel blue and gold. This photo also gives you a good view of the intricate ceiling arches.

Here’s a close up of the speaking pulpit. It’s both simple and elegant at the same time.

And here is a close up of the altar and it’s detailed carvings and statues. In the lower left you can see a small opening in the back wall which represents the empty tomb of Jesus and the stone that had been rolled away.

Lutherkirche (Luther Church)

Luther Church is also located in downtown Plauen. It’s another Protestant church just a couple blocks from the Altes Rathaus or City Hall and at the top of the hill from the shopping mall and the trolley station. It’s a relatively small and quaint Baroque style church. The second oldest church in town.

Even small quaint churches in Germany are pretty amazing inside, though. The organ is beautiful. Wish I could hear it play.

This church sports a simple corner mounted speaking pulpit.

The altar room is very well lit and the Gothic winged altar is quite beautiful and intricate. It’s about 525 years old!

On the exterior wall, near the door, is this cool little peek into the historic construction of the Luther Church. The sign says: A look into history: Baroque plaster from the 18th century.

Pausaer Neighborhood

Even though I wasn’t able to prove it till about a year after my trip to Germany, I had suspected while I was there that Pausaer Straße 106 was the address of my grandfather’s family in Plauen. So I checked out that neighborhood while I was in town.

These townhouses or row houses remind me of the brownstone housing style in New York City and surrounding boroughs. 106 is the first one, the far right building with the giant Real Estate and Car Dealer ad painted on the side. Leichtkauf at the bottom of the ad means easy purchase.

Yep. This is where my grandfather grew up! Well, technically I can’t be sure that this building is over one hundred years old. But it looks about right to my untrained and unprofessional eye. If anyone out there among the InterWebs knows the exact age of this building, please let me know. It’s Pausaer Straße 106, Plauen Germany

Looks like 5 mail slots, so I guess there are 5 separate apartments inside. Which is a bit strange to me. Why wouldn’t it be an even number? What is the layout inside? Is one apartment twice the size of the rest? Is there a Zillow equivalent in Germany that can show me interior photos?!?!?

Here is the rear of the building. Very modest.

This is the row of apartments directly across the street. Very similar styles.

This church is only 2 blocks from the apartment that my grandfather grew up in. It’s called Markus Paulus church or parish. It’s an Evangelical-Lutheran church. It was originally called St. Mark’s Church when it as built back in the early 1900s. The building was not open the day I was exploring the neighborhood, so I was not able to see the interior, but there are some photos on the Wikipedia page.

Just a stones throw from where my grandfather grew up, I came across this garden park. It’s laid out into walking paths with a gazillion small land plots off the path where owners put sheds and gardens and trees and such. It’s pretty amazing. On google maps, this little garden neighborhood looks like a bunch of residential houses, but these roofs are actually small garden sheds and small cottages and the roads are actually mostly walking paths.

According to the Internet, where everything you read is true, these little garden neighborhoods, or Kleingarten, are technically called allotment gardens. They are also called community gardens or garden plots or garden colonies. They are designed to allow families who live in cities to grow their own food and to allow children to enjoy a larger outdoor space and connect with the world outside their four walls. Pretty cool idea!

Misc

Remember back in my earlier Zaulsdorf post where I ran into a cool planetary statue thingy in a small village nearby? Well the Uranus statue is located right there in Plauen. Kinda cool that I ran into both Neptune and Uranus in my travels there.

Okay, this is a reconstruction of a common postal course/milestone marker monument. It basically tells you the distance to a whole list of cities and towns. And which direction they are located. Pretty cool. Apparently these things are all over Europe. Technically they are called “post-Electoral Post Milestones“. Which sounds a bit redundant. And also repetitive.

This was a really cool and really old looking well in downtown Plauen. Basically in the private back yard/patio of a house or apartment. It looks a hundred years old to me, so I took a photo of it. It’s just a half a block from the market square that’s adjacent to the Altes Rathaus or City Hall.

Plauen has quite a rural feel especially with the rolling hills just outside of town. This photo shows some hills but I mostly took it because of the playground. I love the three-dimensionality of it. I mean check out that slide mounted on the side of that little green hill with the steps going up the side of the hill! And I bet the kids roll down that hill too!

This is the Malzhaus or Malt House. It’s just a couple blocks from the market square. You can see the Johanniskirche (St. John’s Church) towers in the background. The Malzhaus is both an old historic cellar-bar and a modern entertainment venue.

The Malzhaus has an outdoor concert stage.

Here were a few of the upcoming shows being advertised outside the Malzhaus building.

While in Germany, I kept seeing lots of these little fences mounted on all the roofs. I had no idea what they were, but I assumed it had something to do with snow. My later research revealed that they are called Snow Guards. They’ve been used for hundreds of years to prevent avalanches of snow and ice from falling onto people’s heads. Snow avalanches can also rip the gutters off a building. These snow guards allow the ice and snow to drop off in small amounts, instead of sliding off all at once. Or alternatively they just hold the snow pack there on the roof until it melts away.

This is something interesting that I noticed while inside Johanniskirche (St. John’s Church). The wooden pews are all installed on top of a raised wooden platform that is a few inches up off the floor. And there are vents running along the entire length of each pew. They actually run heat through this raised wooden platform and heat the underside of the pews! What a great idea!

I’m not sure what kind of tree this is, but it is very common in the area …

… and it was in full bloom when I was there last April.

And there was quite a bit of pollen in the air while I was there. It bothered me quite a bit. This photo shows the pollen buildup on my car after parking it near one of these trees all day.

Somebody please tell me what this is. It’s a plastic box with what looks like cat-box litter inside. Is it for melting snow on sidewalks? The label says “Building and facility management of the city Plauen. Municipal construction yard.”

This is just a cool view looking down a Plauen street with the countryside in the background.

But wait, there’s even more Germany to explore!

Stay tuned because my next blog post from my April 2018 trip to Germany (yeah, I’m way behind on posting, I know) is going to be all about the amazing food I experienced! And you don’t want to miss that!

Thanks for your interest!

Kurt