Sun 12.Jun.2011
Hamburg, Germany

Through the magic of time lag...
this page's photos are from last week in the Vogtland, a remote, rather self-contained region that includes parts of three German states and one Czech. My time was spent in the German state of Saxony (Sachsen).


Playing in the Band XIII
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Each Ascension Day weekend, Grateful Deadheads gather and celebrate in the Malzhaus in Plauen, the only real city of the Vogtland.

The medieval malting house is now a restaurant and regional cultural center.

The organizers have a remarkable talent for coming up with little-known European bands whose music will appeal to dead heads. The celebrants provide most of the remaining ingrediants of a peaceful, delightful weekend.


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We were not the only festival in town. The Plauen Needlepoint Fair was in full swing, a much bigger affair than ours. Two squares in the old town and a third were full of booths, stages, rides and their own celebrants, and ours too.

I understand that Plauen needlepoint is famous among those who know such things.



Obiter dictum: my hosts here in Hamburg are watching a German sitcom. What parts I understand are ample evidence that there is brain-dead TV in Europe as well as in the You Ess of Eh. (Oops! I asked. It is an American movie dubbed in German.)
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Playing in the Band, the dead head gig, takes place in the vaulted cellar of the Malzhaus, a wonderfully atmospheric setting.

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After the weekend, some of us stayed a few days in the nearby village of Buchwald, visiting the sweet couple who mainly organize the gig. The region has a wealth of country restaurants in the middle of lovely rolling green countryside.



West Saxon Roadside Attraction
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Mini World
Where you can see landmarks famous and less so in miniature. Well I didn't show you the real Eiffel Tower from Paris, so I can not show it to you from here too.


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Two sculptures that stand out front of the Malzhaus in Plauen.

This scupture of a sculptor sits at a museum / cultural center that deserves way more attention than it is ever likely to get out near the village of Lichtenstein, West Saxony. The Daetz-Centrum celebrates the art of sculpture with a world-class collection, on view to the public. I expected to spend a few minutes at a side-show near Mini-World, and emerged close to three hours later dazzled. I took only a few photos (wasn't sure if I was supposed to).

Maybe I'll find more to say next post. For now, I can only swear that this alone is worth a journey to the middle of nowhere in West Saxony. (Rick Steves, are you out there?)


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A whimsical outdoor deco in a wood near the Daetz-Centrum. I don't know whether it really belongs to the Centrum.

What would a train journey to Germany be without passing through the vast Munich Hauptbahnhof?

You can see the names of two well-known musicians in larger-than-life neon here.



Credit Where Due
Deeper thanks to more people than I can enumerate without making this page read like a census. You know who you are.

Falling Behind
My excellent hosts here in Hamburg took me out today on a sightseeing walk. I accumulated photos way faster than I am getting them posted. Sigh.


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