22,285 steps or 9.73 miles–that is how far we walked in the city of Leipzig today! We started out spending 3 1/2 hours traversing the Leipzig Zoo which I had visited with my husband Carl and son Stephen three years ago. I convinced my sister, Margo and husband, Ken, that this was a zoo worth revisiting, and they agreed with me that it is one of the world’s best zoos, with the animals in large, natural habitats and plenty of space to roam.

We joined the tour at St. Nikolai Church and walked another four miles all over Leipzig, including the spacious Mendelssohn House (Talk about the lives of the rich and famous — Mendelssohn’s apartment was one entire floor of a large building!) and the Bach Museum. Leipzig was the home of many famous musicians in addition to Johann Sebastian Bach — including Robert and Clara Schumann, Gustav Mahler, Richard Wagner, and Edvard Grieg. In addition to being a center for music, Leipzig also led the way in printing and book publishing, and music publisher C. F. Peters owned the house which was rented to Edvard Grieg.

The Bach Museum had changed quite a bit since I last visited it, and I especially liked the display of an organ Bach played. And did you know that in Bach’s family, there were 70 members who were professional musicians? Nearly all the men had a first name of Johann, so their middle names (e.g. Sebastian) is how they referred to each other.

We went back to St. Thomas and heard someone practicing the organ, and also took a picture of Bach’s grave in front of the altar.

We all ate in a typical German restaurant, the Auerbach Keller, and had a typical German meal: soup, sauerbraten and red cabbage, dumplings; plus a marzipan tart, kumquats, and strawberry ice cream for dessert.