{"id":3502,"date":"2018-05-28T01:24:56","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T05:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/?p=3502"},"modified":"2018-06-05T22:49:40","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T02:49:40","slug":"my-trip-to-germany-plauen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/my-trip-to-germany-plauen\/","title":{"rendered":"My Trip To Germany: Plauen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plauen<\/h1>\n

A few weeks ago after speaking at a software developer conference in Berlin<\/a> Germany<\/a>, I had the opportunity to take several personal days while there and I got to see some of the countryside!\u00a0 It was pretty great!<\/p>\n

After visiting the tiny little village of\u00a0Zaulsdorf<\/a>\u00a0Germany near the Czech<\/a> border, I traveled about 30 minutes northwest to the town of Plauen<\/a>\u00a0Germany.\u00a0 This is where my grandfather, Kurt William Leucht<\/a>, lived from about the age of 4 until he left for America at age 18<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Coincidentally, driving from Zaulsdorf<\/a> to Plauen<\/a> is very much like driving from Allentown<\/a> to Peoria<\/a>, which is my old stomping grounds growing up.\u00a0 Plauen<\/a> actually reminds me of Peoria<\/a> in several ways.\u00a0 But it’s a smaller, less industrialized version of Peoria<\/a>.\u00a0 Plauen<\/a> has about 80% of the landmass of Peoria<\/a>, but only has about 50% of the population of Peoria<\/a>.\u00a0 So it’s smaller and the population is way more spread out than Peoria<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the early 1900’s Plauen<\/a> actually peaked in its population.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That population of 128,000 in Plauen<\/a> in 1912 was more than\u00a0Peoria’s<\/a> population is today!\u00a0 Amazing!<\/p>\n

Downtown<\/h1>\n

Plauen feels very safe and friendly.\u00a0 The downtown area of Plauen has modern shops and malls<\/a>.\u00a0 There are many rolling hills in the area and the downtown strip, where cars are not allowed, is on quite a slope.\u00a0 It gives this strip a unique character.<\/p>\n

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Here is the reverse angle, looking downhill.\u00a0 I felt quite at home in this downtown strip.\u00a0 I walked around for a while checking out all the stores and shops.\u00a0 I imagined my grandfather walking around this same strip about a hundred years ago.\u00a0 Several of the buildings appeared to be over a hundred years old, so they were in place when my grandfather lived here.<\/p>\n

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This cute little British phone booth stood out like a sore thumb.\u00a0 It’s called\u00a0Alice’s Book Box and it’s a free book exchange system.\u00a0 The idea is that if you take a book, you replace it with a new book.\u00a0 Very fun.<\/p>\n

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This photo is just a close up of some cool architecture detail that caught my eye downtown.\u00a0 I tried to find a date plaque on this building but I came up empty.\u00a0 The address is\u00a0R\u00e4delstra\u00dfe 2, 08523 Plauen, Germany<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Town Squares<\/h1>\n

This unique old building is the\u00a0Altes Rathaus<\/a> or City Hall.\u00a0 The building has been restored several times over the years, but it’s been around since the late 1300’s.\u00a0 It overlooks a town square or market.<\/p>\n

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Here is one of the markets or squares in the middle of downtown.\u00a0 They contain lots of small businesses and shops and outdoor eateries and cafes.\u00a0 A very nice area to hang out.<\/p>\n

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This statue is pretty famous to the area.\u00a0 It’s called\u00a0Vater und Sohn<\/a> or Father and Son.\u00a0 This statue memorializes the local famous comic strip creator Kurt Erich Ohser<\/a>, who created the popular\u00a0Vater und Sohn<\/a> comic strip in the 1930s under the pseudonym e. o. plauen.<\/p>\n

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Here is another market or square that actually had local vendors set up and selling goods when I walked through it.\u00a0 You can see the old city hall at the far corner of this market.<\/p>\n

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Misc<\/h1>\n

This photo\/camera store in downtown Plauen caught my eye because it claims to have been in business since 1856.\u00a0 It also caught my eye because my grandfather was into photography and especially videography in his later years.\u00a0 Did this photo shop in downtown Plauen get him started in that hobby, I wonder?<\/p>\n

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Sadly, this family owned photo business closed just a few months ago.\u00a0 But apparently they ran from 1856 till 2017, which is quite an impressive run.\u00a0 Especially for a small family run business.<\/p>\n

The local theatre building in Plauen<\/a> is pretty impressive.\u00a0 It hosts\u00a0musical theater, drama, ballet and symphonies.\u00a0 It opened in\u00a01898, right before my grandfather and his family moved to Plauen.<\/p>\n

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I wonder what shows or events my grandfather saw in this theatre while growing up here in Plauen.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

My grandfather was very artistic and also quite musical.\u00a0 In his journal, he mentioned that he had become a good tenor singing in his church in Peoria.\u00a0 At age 20 he took a job painting scenery at a theatre in Peoria.\u00a0 His scenery painting gig also allowed him to act on stage occasionally for the troupe.\u00a0 And he acted quite a bit for the Peoria Cinema Club<\/a> that he became very active in later in life.\u00a0 This Plauen theatre could have sparked some of that creativity and theatre interest in him.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

But wait, there\u2019s more Plauen to explore!<\/h1>\n

You haven’t seen all of\u00a0Plauen<\/a>!\u00a0 My next post will focus on some pretty cool old stuff that I came across in my travels!<\/a>\u00a0 So stay tuned!<\/p>\n

Thanks for your interest!<\/p>\n

Kurt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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!\u00a0 It was pretty great! After visiting the tiny little village of\u00a0Zaulsdorf\u00a0Germany near the Czech border, I traveled about 30 minutes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[110],"tags":[499,278,612,40],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3502"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3597,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502\/revisions\/3597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}