Leipzig

Leipzig is, in a word, cool—but not so cool as to be pretentious. With its world-renowned links to Bach, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Luther, Goethe, Schiller, and the fantastic Neue-Leipziger-Schule art movement, Leipzig is one of the great German cultural centers. It has impressive art nouveau architecture, an incredibly clean city center, meandering back alleys, and the temptations of coffee and cake on every corner. In Faust, Goethe describes Leipzig as "a little Paris"; in reality it's more reminiscent of Vienna, while remaining a distinctly energetic Saxon town.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was organist and choir director at the Thomaskirche, and the 19th-century composer Richard Wagner was born here in 1813. Today's Leipzig maintains this tradition with extraordinary offerings of music, theater, and opera, not to mention a fantastic nightlife.

Wartime bombs destroyed much of Leipzig's city center, but reconstruction efforts have uncovered one of Europe's most vibrant cities. Leipzig's art nouveau flair is best discovered by exploring countless alleys, covered courtyards, and passageways. Many unattractive buildings from the postwar period remain, but only reinforce Leipzig's position on the line between modernity and antiquity.

With a population of about 500,000, Leipzig is the second-largest city in eastern Germany (after Berlin), and has long been a center of printing and bookselling. Astride major trade routes, it was an important market town in the Middle Ages, and it continues to be a trading center, thanks to the Leipziger Messe (trade and fair shows) throughout the year that bring together buyers from East and West.