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My Trip To Germany: The Food

The Amazing Food

Last spring after I spoke at a software developer conference in Berlin Germany, I had the opportunity to take several personal days while there. I also ate some pretty amazing food, but I never got the chance to write a blog post about it. So here is that blog post.

Better late than never!

Hotel Buffet

I stayed at the Leonardo Royal Hotel Berlin Alexanderplatz, which was just a few blocks away from the Alexanderplatz plaza, and a short tram ride or bus ride from anywhere in the city. The breakfast buffet was pretty typical. I enjoyed it.

Since I was speaking at a conference, I tried not to overdo it at the breakfast buffet. That’s why there’s so much white space on my plate.

Street Food

I had to try some German street food while I was there! In the Alexanderplatz plaza, there are plenty of vendors to choose from. I tried the Currywurst which is pork sausage that is deep fried and then drowned in curry ketchup and served with fries. Notice the mayo and ketchup combination on the fries. The Europeans love their mayo and ketchup. It was absolutely delicious!

As if the Currywurst wasn’t enough of a light meal, I also had to try the Bratwurst. I mean, come on, You can’t NOT eat bratwurst in Germany! The bratwurst also had mayo and ketchup on it and it was yummy!

Another popular street food item is the laugenbrezel, or lye pretzel. Pretzels are also found in bakeries and food stores, and there are usually many different baked on toppings to choose from. Most commonly a variety of cheeses or seeds.

Deli’s and store fronts really like to show off their selection of processed meats. Especially those of the sausage family! Here is a short and informative tutorial on the most popular German sausages. And here is an exhaustive list on wikipedia.

Sandwiches in Germany are both simple and elegant at the same time. The breads used are often amazing. The meats and cheeses are usually fresh and tasty. As are the vegetables. I bought this one at a gas station and it was pretty great!

Schnitzel

Oh yeah, I tried some Schnitzel. And I loved it! Schnitzel is a thin pork or veal cutlet that’s breaded and fried. Schnitzels are often topped with a sauce and served with a starchy side. They were invented in Austria, but are very popular in Germany. But that’s not too surprising. That’s like saying that something was invented in Kentucky, but is very popular in Illinois. They share a border!

While in Plauen, I tried a couple different Schnitzels at Schnitzelparadies, yes that’s Schnitzel Paradise! This small local restaurant is just a bit up the hill from the shopping mall and the trolley station. They have a ton of Schnitzel to choose from! Pictured below is the schnitzel in tomato cream sauce with ham and cheese on top with a side of potato croquettes. It was delicious!

My second day in Plauen, I went back to Schnitzelparadies for more! Pictured below is the Karibik or Caribbean schnitzel. Um, wow! It was so good! I love seafood, so this was my favorite! It was topped with small shrimp in a crab herb sauce and fried “squid rings”, or calamari. On the side were parsley potatoes. It’s been over a year since I’ve been to Germany, and I still crave this dish.

Sauerbraten or Sour Roast

I wasn’t sure whether I was going to like Sauerbraten, but I had to try it while I was in Germany. Heinrich’s restaurant in the basement of the Altes Rathaus or City Hall seemed like a good place to try it. Sauerbraten, or Sour Roast, is a pot roast that’s been marinated for many days or even a week in a vinegar or wine solution.

The restaurant was very dark, so it was difficult to get a good photo, below. The roast was tender and quite tasty. If you’re not a fan of vinegar, then you probably won’t like Sauerbraten, though. The purple stuff is red cabbage, which I’m not a huge fan of. And the white balls are potato dumplings or Klöße. Potato dumplings are always a little too rubbery for my taste, though. Although I’m not a fan of these particular sides, I’m definitely a fan of Sauerbraten!

Solyanka Soup

I tried the Solyanka which is a traditional Russian or East German spicy and sour soup. I had this appetizer in Matsch Hotel and Beer Garden in Plauen which is just a block from the Altes Rathaus or City Hall. Their Solyanka is a tomato based soup containing fried sausage, bell peppers, pickles, onions, sour cream, parsley and dill. I’m not normally a huge soup fan, but this was amazing.

Dessert

The photo below was pretty common in shopping plazas and bakeries in Germany. So many little individual sized desserts to choose from!

This little treat is something that I had never seen before and I’ve never seen it since. But I’d like to see it again, because it was so good! I bought it in a little deli in the Alexa mall, in Berlin near the Alexanderplatz plaza. The store is called Butter Lindner and the product is Vanillequark, or Vanilla Quark. This stuff is magical. It’s smooth like yogurt and it’s sweet like ice cream.

Quark is actually a curdled milk product. It’s essentially a soft cheese. But this particular Butter Lindner product is like a cross between a cream cheese and a yogurt. It contains the soft quark cheese, sweet cream, sugar, cream cheese, whey, bourbon-vanilla, salt, citric acid, and finally a thickening agent. This stuff is so delicious and so fattening, it’s probably a good thing that I don’t have easy access to it here in America.

Beer Halls & Beer Gardens

Even though I’m not a beer drinker, I checked out a couple of Beer Halls and Beer Gardens in Berlin while I was there. The kitchen was closed at the Hofbräu Wirtshaus or Tavern in Berlin when I showed up, so I couldn’t try any of their food, but I checked out the place and saw this cool beer stein locker in the back of the restaurant. The regulars need only to carry a key, rather than carry their stein back and forth! Smart!

Obviously, I wish I could have enjoyed more German fare, but my time there was limited. So that’s all the food I was able to try and report on.

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

Stay tuned because my final blog post from my April 2018 trip to Germany (yeah, I’m way behind on posting, I know) is going to talk about some misc things that didn’t fit into any of the previous categories! How’s that for a sales pitch?!?!?

Thanks for your interest!

Kurt

My Trip To Germany: Plauen (Part 3)

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

My Trip To Germany: Plauen (Part 2)

Plauen

A few weeks ago after speaking at a software developer conference in Berlin Germany, I had the opportunity to take several personal days while there 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.

Friedensbrücke (Peace Bridge)

The Peace Bridge (Friedensbrücke) is a stone arch bridge built in 1905.  The longest span is 90 meters which is nearly 300 feet.  It’s one of the largest stone arch bridges in the world!  There are no older bridges in the world containing this long of an arch span!

My grandfather was 9 years old when the bridge construction was finished, so I’m certain he would have marveled at this monster.  He lived less than one mile (1.6 km) from this bridge, so he must have at least walked across it and under it as a teenager.  Here’s what the bridge looked like in 1906.

And here are a few photos that I took of the bridge while I was there.  It’s really quite impressive.  Especially when you consider when it was constructed.

It’s quite difficult to get a photo of the entire bridge.  It’s really big and there are lots of trees in the area.

The bridge is quite beautiful.  The design is very organized and geometrical, but it also has some random elements mixed in.  The bridge was badly damaged during the war, but it was restored quickly, even though that took a lot of the limited resources that were available to Plauen after the war.

Alte Elsterbrücke (Old Magpie Bridge)

The Old Magpie Bridge (Alte Elsterbrücke) near downtown Plauen is the second oldest stone bridge in Saxony and one of the oldest in Central Europe.  It was first mentioned in documentation from 1244.  The bridge has gone through many restorations over these many years.  You can definitely pick out some sections that are more modern than others.

My grandfather lived about 2 miles (3.2 km) from this old bridge.

It’s a pretty neat bridge and it’s amazing how old it is and that it’s still standing.

Old Castle Looking Structure On Hill

Just one block from downtown Plauen and one block from both town squares, overlooking the entire town, sits this old fort or castle.  I’m not sure which.  It’s obviously under restoration right now.  But I didn’t see any signage and I can’t find any information on the Internet about it either.  Strange.

Whatever it is, it looks pretty awesome.  And some of it is buried in what appears to be a hillside.  But underneath that dirt, looks to be some really old walls and rooms.  This was all completely fenced off for construction, so I couldn’t explore.  I’m interested to find out the history of this structure and what exactly tourists in the future will be able to see and explore.

Spitzenmuseum (Lace Museum)

In my previous post, I mentioned Plauen’s textile and lace manufacturing revolution in the early 1900’s.  My grandfather wrote this in his journal:

After graduating [high school], I obtained a job with Otto-Baum & Son, who manufactured and exported lace.

I’m not exactly sure what type of work he did or how long he did it, though.  While I was in Plauen, I was unable to find any listings or address for this Otto-Baum & Son company, but I’m guessing that in 1913 or 1914, when my grandfather was 17 or 18 years old, small family run lace businesses were all the rage.  The population of Plauen actually peaked in 1912 due to the textile and lace industry there.

So it would have been an absolute crime for me to skip the official Lace Museum (Spitzenmuseum) in town!  The museum has on display, under glass, beautiful antique lace pieces such as these delicate gloves and scarf:

And some amazing clothing items too.

And also this incredible 1936 wedding dress.  Sorry, I didn’t catch the dates on any of the other clothing items.  I’m a dude.  That’s my excuse.  🙂

I’m guessing that this is a tablecloth.  Very cool.  And the display case is also quite impressive!

As a dude, and also as an engineer, I was most excited to gaze at the old antique lace making machinery, as opposed to looking at the actual antique lace samples on display.  But I believe that guys and gals alike can both appreciate this historical local museum.

So this machine apparently pumped out copy after copy of the same small lace pattern segment.

Here are some examples of the small lace pattern segments so you can see what the machine above produced.  These examples are about 6 inches tall or so.

This is the same example, but much closer so you can see the detail.  Basically this detail area contains two leaves with decorative honeycomb-like ribbing.  Each leaf is about 3/4 of an inch.  Pay close attention to the very short ribs on the right that are spanning between the two leaves.

This is the hand-drawn pattern that the operator used to “program” or to drive the giant machine.  The leaves which are actually less than an inch long in real life are about 8 or 10 inches long on this pattern.  And the tiny little, just a few millimeters long, ribs that span between the two leaves are an inch or more long on this pattern.

This display shows an example of how some of the lace products had to be stitched together by hand from numerous smaller sections, like a puzzle.

Here is a smaller and portable automated lace making machine.  You can see the “programming” of this machine was performed by the long roll of punched paper tape.  Surprisingly, this punched tape programming technique had been used on looms for over a hundred years.

The punched tape has holes in it that tell the machine which needles to move up and down and when to do so.

Here is a close up shot of the linear array of sewing needles on this portable machine that were programmed by the punched tape.

I thought this photo was cool so I took a picture of it.  This photo shows the prevalence of factories in Plauen at the height of the textile and lace manufacturing boom.

This display was pretty neat.  This particular lace example is very very textured and even three-dimensional.  Amazing.

And here is an example of an antique and automated embroidery machine.  From this angle, it looks basically like an old sewing machine.

But from this angle, you can clearly see the punched paper tape roll that is fed through the machine to move and control the stitching action.  I think the sewing machine stays stationary and the hoop with the fabric gets moved around.  Pretty cool.

And here is the final product from the automated embroidery machine.  Very nice.  Especially for the time period that this technology was invented and used.

Antique Store

I passed a nice looking local antique store on my way to the town square and I thought it would be fun to check it out and to look for some items that were from the time my grandfather was living in the area.

I considered buying a piece of lace from the early 1900’s, but they were all out of my price range.  This antique store had several beautiful samples, though.

I think they were from the worlds fair or something like that.  Check out the cool lead seal with the crown embedded in it.  That dates it before the first world war, I think the store owner told me.

There were some really cool items in this antique store, but I eventually landed on a vintage harmonica.  Apparently my grandfather came over to America with a harmonica in his pocket.  On July 22nd of 1914, my grandfather’s first day on the ship that took him to America, he wrote this in his journal:

We arrived at 9:00. We were invited to board the ship “Vaterland”. […] We noticed that hundreds of people were waving their handkerchiefs and shouting farewell greetings to us. We did the same.  […]  The German homeland disappeared in the distance. […]  At 3:00 the call to coffee came.  After that, there was more activity on deck. Music was made with an accordion, while some Bohemian country people were performing their dances.  […]  At 7:00, the bells chimed for the evening meal. It became stormier and the ship swayed a little. Despite the disturbance, there was still dancing on the deck. I added to the concert with my harmonica. I went to bed at 11:00.

So I thought it might be cool to own an authentic German harmonica from that time period.  Here’s the one that I purchased.  It’s not quite as old as my grandfather’s, but it’s still very cool.

The case says Liebchen’s Gruss which means Sweetie’s Greeting.  And it has a brightly colored sticker showing “sweetie” waving something in the air.  Possibly a harmonica.  The case also says Made In Germany and “Ges. gesch.” which means registered or patented.

The actual harmonica is pretty basic.  It’s in good shape, with just a couple spots of rust and no wear marks to be seen.  “Liebchen’s Gruss” is etched into both sides.  I’m happy with my purchase and I’m glad I noticed the antique store and decided to check it out.

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

You haven’t quite seen all of Plauen yet!  In my next post, we’ll explore some churches and we’ll also explore the neighborhood where my grandfather grew up!  So stay tuned!

Thanks for your interest!

Kurt

My Trip To Germany: Plauen

Plauen

A few weeks ago after speaking at a software developer conference in Berlin Germany, I had the opportunity to take several personal days while there and I got to see some of the countryside!  It was pretty great!

After visiting the tiny little village of Zaulsdorf Germany near the Czech border, I traveled about 30 minutes northwest to the town of Plauen Germany.  This is where my grandfather, Kurt William Leucht, lived from about the age of 4 until he left for America at age 18.

Coincidentally, driving from Zaulsdorf to Plauen is very much like driving from Allentown to Peoria, which is my old stomping grounds growing up.  Plauen actually reminds me of Peoria in several ways.  But it’s a smaller, less industrialized version of PeoriaPlauen has about 80% of the landmass of Peoria, but only has about 50% of the population of Peoria.  So it’s smaller and the population is way more spread out than Peoria.

In the early 1900’s Plauen actually peaked in its population.  In 1912, when my grandfather was living there at age 16, the population grew to 128,000 people, due to the peak of textile and lace manufacturing there.  That population of 128,000 in Plauen in 1912 was more than Peoria’s population is today!  Amazing!

Downtown

Plauen feels very safe and friendly.  The downtown area of Plauen has modern shops and malls.  There are many rolling hills in the area and the downtown strip, where cars are not allowed, is on quite a slope.  It gives this strip a unique character.

Here is the reverse angle, looking downhill.  I felt quite at home in this downtown strip.  I walked around for a while checking out all the stores and shops.  I imagined my grandfather walking around this same strip about a hundred years ago.  Several of the buildings appeared to be over a hundred years old, so they were in place when my grandfather lived here.

This cute little British phone booth stood out like a sore thumb.  It’s called Alice’s Book Box and it’s a free book exchange system.  The idea is that if you take a book, you replace it with a new book.  Very fun.

This photo is just a close up of some cool architecture detail that caught my eye downtown.  I tried to find a date plaque on this building but I came up empty.  The address is Rädelstraße 2, 08523 Plauen, Germany.

Town Squares

This unique old building is the Altes Rathaus or City Hall.  The building has been restored several times over the years, but it’s been around since the late 1300’s.  It overlooks a town square or market.

Here is one of the markets or squares in the middle of downtown.  They contain lots of small businesses and shops and outdoor eateries and cafes.  A very nice area to hang out.

This statue is pretty famous to the area.  It’s called Vater und Sohn or Father and Son.  This statue memorializes the local famous comic strip creator Kurt Erich Ohser, who created the popular Vater und Sohn comic strip in the 1930s under the pseudonym e. o. plauen.

Here is another market or square that actually had local vendors set up and selling goods when I walked through it.  You can see the old city hall at the far corner of this market.

Misc

This photo/camera store in downtown Plauen caught my eye because it claims to have been in business since 1856.  It also caught my eye because my grandfather was into photography and especially videography in his later years.  Did this photo shop in downtown Plauen get him started in that hobby, I wonder?

Sadly, this family owned photo business closed just a few months ago.  But apparently they ran from 1856 till 2017, which is quite an impressive run.  Especially for a small family run business.

The local theatre building in Plauen is pretty impressive.  It hosts musical theater, drama, ballet and symphonies.  It opened in 1898, right before my grandfather and his family moved to Plauen.

I wonder what shows or events my grandfather saw in this theatre while growing up here in Plauen.  My parents and my sister and I are all very much into musical theatre and I wonder if any of that interest started right here in this building way back in the early 1900s.

My grandfather was very artistic and also quite musical.  In his journal, he mentioned that he had become a good tenor singing in his church in Peoria.  At age 20 he took a job painting scenery at a theatre in Peoria.  His scenery painting gig also allowed him to act on stage occasionally for the troupe.  And he acted quite a bit for the Peoria Cinema Club that he became very active in later in life.  This Plauen theatre could have sparked some of that creativity and theatre interest in him.  Although I’ll never know details like these until I talk to my grandfather in heaven, it’s always fun to imagine and to speculate.

But wait, there’s more Plauen to explore!

You haven’t seen all of PlauenMy next post will focus on some pretty cool old stuff that I came across in my travels!  So stay tuned!

Thanks for your interest!

Kurt

My Trip To Germany: The Countryside

The Countryside

A couple weeks ago after speaking at a software developer conference in Berlin Germany, I had the opportunity to take several personal days while there and I got to see some of the countryside!  It was pretty great!

I rented a car and then drove south out of Berlin.  Sort of towards Munich but only about half that far.  My destination was a tiny little village called Zaulsdorf that is tucked into a tiny little valley of beautiful rolling hillsides.  This is where my grandfather, Kurt William Leucht, was born and where he lived till about the age of 4.  I grew up in a very rural area of Central Illinois, so seeing rural Germany was really fun for me.

Zaulsdorf

Here’s a photo that I took of Zaulsdorf from above.

It’s a very small farming community.  There are probably only 20 houses in total.  Zaulsdorf reminds me of the small unincorporated community of Allentown, Illinois that I grew up in.

The beautiful yellow flowering fields seen in this photo are very common in Germany and are growing rapeseed which is the 3rd largest source of vegetable oil in the world.

Zaulsdorf is just a couple miles off the nearest highway but is only accessible via a one lane road that is both steep and winding.

This photo shows the large rural land plots within the village and also some of the farmland on the hills in the distance.

There are only a couple of small one lane roads in Zaulsdorf.  I parked my rental car along the playground near the center of the village and walked around for a bit.

I was mainly looking for old structures and old houses that were likely in place back in 1900 when my grandfather was a pre-school child there in the village.  Like this old house.

This old barn was probably also there in 1900.  Look at that architecture!  They don’t make ’em like this anymore!  It’s a real work of art!

Here’s a close up view of the slate stone wall foundation.  Amazing.

This little stream was at the bottom of the valley, in a park or playground.  While looking at this stream it was easy to imagine my 4 year old grandfather playing in it back in 1900.  At least I know I would have played in it as a 4 year old!

This photo shows some of the properties and houses from the bottom of the valley looking up.  Some of the houses were cute little cottages, while some were larger modern looking structures.

This old barn has an old slate rock roof.  It’s beautiful.  These types of roofs can last for 200 years!

For many generations in Zaulsdorf, my grandfather’s family owned the village mill, which was a central focus of Zaulsdorf.  In 1902, they sold the mill to the Halbauer family.  The mill was a working centerpiece of Zaulsdorf until about 1986, when it was shut down and the mill building was turned into apartments or a duplex of sorts.

The white building in this photo is the old Zaulsdorf mill.

The old Zaulsdorf mill used water from a brook or stream on top of the hill which was guided in a pipeline to the mill. Inside the mill building, the water flowed through a turbine and then exited the building into the brook again.  So the entire mill drive ran inside the building and wasn’t visible from the outside at all.

Inside the mill, people ground grain into flour. There used to be a lot of mills like this in Germany because the farmers had only small pieces of land and couldn’t easily transport their grain across long distances.  But they are becoming more and more rare.

Here is a closer photo of the mill.  It was mid-morning on a weekday when I was there exploring the village.  Part of me wanted to walk up and knock on all the doors and ask if I could explore inside the old mill building.  But I don’t speak German at all.  And it looked like nobody was home anyways.  So I chickened out.

This large old barn next to the mill building looks like a fun place for a 4 year old to play in 1900.  I think it would be cool to explore inside today, just to see what my grandfather experienced back in 1900.  But it didn’t seem like anyone was around.  So I just imagined what it’s like inside.

What are the odds that there is something of my grandfather’s actually up in the attic of this old mill barn right now?  Like an old toy or an old book?  With his name scratched on it or written in it?  Wouldn’t that be cool to find!

Here is a close up of the old barn next to the mill building.  The sign says “at the mill”.  I’m assuming this barn was part of the mill property based on its location and also based on that sign.

I almost missed it, but in the small park or playground in the middle of the village was this memorial from World War I.  It’s about chest high and it’s towards the back of the property.

It says:

Our Heroes
1914-1918
Walter Flemmig
Emil Leucht
Paul Leucht
Paul Knoll
Max Bley

So who are these two Leucht guys who were from Zaulsdorf and died in WWI?  I’m not sure.  My immediate relatives moved out of Zaulsdorf in 1900, but maybe there were other Leucht families living there.  Leucht was a fairly common name in the area.

Leipzig

I popped into Leipzig quickly, which was about midway on my trip to Zaulsdorf.  The reason I wanted to get a look at Leipzig was that my grandfather stopped there when he was 18 years old and travelling to the northern coast of Germany for his overseas trip to America.  He wrote in his journal that he had a couple hour train layover in Leipzig and that he saw the Battle of the Nations Monument.

First I explored this big cemetery that was right next to the Battle of the Nations Monument.  It was pretty cool.

This photo is still inside the cemetery, but you can see the massive Battle of the Nations Monument in the background.

This huge monument was built in 1913 and my grandfather saw it in 1914.  If you look closely you can see two people at the base of the monument, which gives you a better feel for the size of this thing.  It’s really big!

Photos don’t quite do it justice.  This monument is immense.  It’s 300 feet tall!  The monument commemorates Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig.  It is claimed to stand on the spot of some of the bloodiest fighting, from where Napoleon ordered the retreat of his army.

I didn’t have a lot of time in Leipzig, so I didn’t actually tour the monument or the museum or anything.  I just walked around it, took some photos, was amazed, and then got back on the road.

Misc

This is just some random stuff related to my travels through the countryside.

Here is the rental car that I got in Germany.  It’s an Opel Adam.  It’s just a bit bigger than a Mini Cooper.  And more streamlined.  I liked it.  It had all the bells and whistles.  And it ran great.  I ran at 105 mph (170 km/h) on the Autobahn for a while and this car didn’t even blink.  By the way, at that speed people were still zooming past me like I was standing still!

This car had a 5 speed manual transmission.  Now that I think about it, they didn’t even ask me if I could drive a manual transmission.  They just gave it to me.  Obviously, I can drive a manual.  I actually prefer a manual transmission.  Every car I’ve ever owned has been a manual.  The vast majority of all vehicles in Europe are manual and in some countries you even have to prove that you can drive a manual before they will even give you a licence.

On my way out of Zaulsdorf, I thought it might be interesting to visit a couple of local country cemeteries.  Here is one of them.  It was very small, less than one city block.  I wondered if any of my ancient relatives were buried in any of these small town cemeteries in this area.

I did find a Leucht couple buried at one of the cemeteries that I visited.  But I don’t think they are from my family.  At least not a part of the family tree that we have found and documented.

While driving from one small town cemetery to another, I passed by this building with Leucht painted real big on the side.  Obviously, I stopped to check it out!  It says: Curtains, Albert Leucht, Weaving

I stumbled across this planetary statue thingy while searching out a public restroom in a small village near one of the local country cemeteries.  Turns out there are 8 of these planet displays installed around Vogtland, which is basically the name of the county here.  Each display shows one of the planets in the solar system  And the distances between the displays is scaled to the  distances between the planets.  That’s kinda cool.  A person would need to travel all over the county in order to see them all.  And they would get a feel for the relative distances between the planets.

The main sign says:

Neptune is the eighth and outermost planet in the solar system, with an average distance of 4.5 billion kilometers (equivalent to about 25.8 kilometers in this model).  It was discovered in 1846 on the basis of Uranus orbit interferences.  With a diameter of almost 50,000 kilometers (here about 28 cm), just four times the diameter of the earth, it is the fourth largest planet in our solar system.  Together with Uranus, Neptune forms the subgroup of the “ice giants”.  Neptune dominates by its size the outer zone of the planetary system.  Neptune currently has 14 known moons.  The gas planet is named after Neptune, the Roman god of the sea and the flowing waters.

The gold plaque says:

Initiators Andreas Krauß – Olaf Graf
Planetary Trails Vogtland
A total of 8 paths lead from landmark points to the center – the observatory Rodewisch.  The lines between the starting points and the dome of the planetarium of the school observatory symbolize the distances between the planets of our solar system. Walk along the marked paths and experience a piece of wonderful (hiking) Vogtland.

Very cool.  I like that.  I wonder how many public schools shuttle their students all around the county to see all of these displays.  That’s a pretty cool learning experience.  Although it might make for a long day.

But wait, there’s more Germany to explore!

My next stop was Plauen, where my grandfather lived from age 4 to age 18, when he came to America!  Next time I’ll publish some details and photos from that part of my trip!

Thanks for your interest!

Kurt