Everybody lies

posted on Saturday, October, 27th, 2007 in funstuff

I just saw that Grace from SandierPastures tagged me for a meme. This is the first time (I am aware of) that somebody tagged me for one of these things. I feel so honored.

I suppose I should really do this post about Leipzig, where I am living now most of the time, but I am still so new there that I hardly know my way around and, besides, I don’t yet consider it “my city”.

So instead I chose to write a few things about my hometown Weimar.

Best place to eat:

The most well-known (and posh) place would probably be either the restaurant in the Hotel Elephant or the Russischer Hof (which is a hotel as well).

I haven’t been to either of these places more than twice in my life, on special occasions. Not only are they too expensive for my budget, I also don’t like the stilted atmosphere of such etablissements.

Another famous restaurant is Zum Weissen Schwan (= The White Swan). It is famous, because Goethe used to dine there already (he lived right next door). I have to admit, I have never eaten there myself, though.
My choice would tend more to our local steakhouse, Restaurant Texas (they don’t have a website), or the Potato House. Or the mexican, El Burrito. Or the Brasserie. Or, one of my favorites back when I was a kid, the fish restaurant Gastmahl des Meeres, which I loved not only for the food, but also because it was bloody hard to get a reservation and a visit there was always something special. (Sorry, the websites are all in german only.)
Also, there are lots of cafés all over town, so the choice here would be even harder, but my favorite is the Café Frauentor, which is situated right on the main shopping road. I can spend hours there reading, writing my diary or just people-watching.

Best Shopping Mall:

This one is easy, because – don’t laugh! – there is only one shopping mall in my town. It’s called Atrium, and to everybody coming from a real city (you know, a big one) it won’t seem like much of a mall. They have something like 30 shops and 2 or 3 cafés, a bowling centre, a 3D cinema, an indoor playground for children and stuff like that.

Not very impressive, I grant you, but totally adequate for our little town.

Famous landmarks:

God, there are so many! Weimar has several historical buildings that are included in the Unesco World Heritage List, but there are lots of other things Weimar is known for. We have several little castles in and around the city, of which my favorite is Castle Belvedere (mainly because I can see it from my desk right now).

The National Theatre – Don’t ask me why it’s so especially famous. I am not really a theatre person myself.

Buchenwald - One of the infamous concentration camps from World War II. A pretty bleak place, naturally. Because it is situated on a hill, its clocktower is visible from pretty much anywhere in town. The camp itself is surrounded by beautiful woods with long hiking paths and wonderful views.

Entertaining the kids:

Sad to say, Germany is not exactly the most child-friendly country on earth. They are usually rather tolerated than really catered to, tourismwise.

As far as I am aware, Weimar is not really an exception in this regard. We do have, of course, lots of playgrounds, cinemas and stuff like that, but I can’t think of any attraction that would be especially targeted at kids around here. But maybe that is also due to the fact that I don’t have kids myself, neither does anybody in my immediate family, so I never have a cause to look for things like that.

In summer the parks in and around the city are pretty popular. You can also rent horses to ride through the parks or out into the countryside. In Belvedere they have a nice maze, which can be quite entertaining for little kids.

There used to be a children’s education centre back when I was a child, where you could do all kinds of “scientific” experiments or learn how to live outdoors or stuff like that. A bit like the boyscouts, I assume. They also used to have a little petting zoo with goats and a pony and a huge tame raven, which was my favorite part of the whole thing. Last thing I heard was that they had to close because of lack of funds a few years back, but when I just checked I learned that apparently somebody took it over privately and turned it into a non-profit association to keep it alive.

Popular outdoor activity:

This is a tough one. Weimar is a city of culture and history – as such, most people come here to visit museums or memorials, or go to the theatre or something.

I guess the most popular outdoor activity here would be a walk in one of our beautiful parks or a longer hiking tour to some little village or other in the vicinity, or a tour around the city in one of the horse-drawn coaches. There are also some nice cycling paths around the town.

Breathtaking views:

Well, breathtaking might be a bit exaggerated, but there are some nice views to be had from Buchenwald and from the park around Castle Belvedere. You can see more or less the whole town spread out in front of you (which isn’t such a big deal, because with only 65.000 inhabitants it isn’t such a big town anyway…). also very nice is the view from the tower of one of our churches in the town centre, or from the castle tower. Neither one is overly high, but since there are also no very high buildings you can see pretty much the whole town from up there. If you don’t mind the sometimes rickety steps, that is.

Only available in your city:

The atmosphere and the sense of a millenium of history compressed into a small, cozy town. The knowledge that in most places of the town’s centre you are walking in the footsteps of one or other famous (and usually long dead) person. The vault where Goethe and Schiller are resting.

(click for a larger version)

Personally, the thing I love most in my town is the Duchess Anna Amalia Library. One of the most beautiful historical libraries I know (though I might be prejudiced, because I used to work there for a while). Tragically it was largely destroyed in a fire in 2004, but they just re-opened it this week, restored to its old beauty. At least the building is restored. The restauration of the thousands of books that got damaged will take decades, and thousands more were totally destroyed and have to be replaced from somewhere. All very sad, but I am mostly happy that the building was saved.

(click for a larger version)

Another thing that my town is widely known for is the Zwiebelmarkt (literally: Onion Market), which takes place usually on the second weekend of October. This year for the 355th time I am proud to say. It used to be mainly some kind of big harvest fair, but in the last years it evolved into some all-encompassing open-air festivity. You got hundreds of market stalls selling not only braided onions, but pretty much everything you can think of from arts and crafts stuff to housewares to furniture – whatever. They are strewn all over the city centre. There are sideshows, carousels for the kids, a huge ferris wheel. There are live bands on several stages. The craziest stuff to eat and drink (the staple food is onion cake – and, yes, that’s exactly as disgusting as it sounds). They even crown an onion princess every year. This year they even had a historical market – it looked like transplanted right out of the middle ages, with people dressed up as court jesters and stuff.

The crowds are unbelievable. This year there were about 300.000 visitors there – in 3 days. In a town with only 65.000 inhabitants that is quite impressive. Opressive sometimes, too. But if you ever come to Weimar for only a weekend, make it the Zwiebelmarkt weekend. It’s worth it.

Phew, are you still awake? It’s one of those mega-long posts again. Sorry. Won’t happen again. (Yeah, right.)

It was fun, though. Thanks, Grace. I have no idea who to tag, so if you want to play along: just consider yourself tagged.