A visit to Magdeburg

Wir sind durch die Stadt gerannt

Ham keinen Ort mehr erkannt

an dern wir nicht schon einmal waren

Wir ham alles ausprobiert

Die Freiheit endet hier

Wir müssen jetzt durch diese Wand

Verlager dein Gewicht, den Abgrund siehst du nicht...

 

Achtung, fertig, los und lauf!

Vor uns bricht den Himmel auf

Wir schaffen es zusammen übers Ende dieser Welt

die hinter uns zerfällt

 

 

 

I am opening my diary entry with a quote from the song "Übers Ende der Welt", written by the best contemporary German poet/songwriter, Bill Kaulitz from the new German music sensation Tokio Hotel.

 

Why quoting Tokio Hotel?! Apart from the fact that I sort of like their music (I know this is a guilty pleasure), there is another good reason: today's trip took me to the only big city in the former GDR that I had not visited yet: Magdeburg, which also happened to be the city where Tokio Hotel were formed. Magdeburg of course is famous for a lot more reasons than having given the world Tokio Hotel. It was one of the most important medieval cities in the area and its town laws were spread across Europe known as the Magdeburg Rights. The voyage started at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, a cheap 35 euro weekend ticket would allow me the 1,5 hour journey to Magdeburg central station. Achtung, fertig, los und lauf!

 

 

 

Magdeburg is not a big city, or at least the city is not that big. In fact I could walk through the historical center in less than 2,5 hours by foot and still see all historical places. Having been heavily suffering during the world war II, the historical sights in Magdeburg are not large in numbers, but they are nice. First of all the train station itself is quite nice as well. The walk from the train station to the inner city shows one of those things that former East German cities seem to have in common (when thinking back of Leipzig and Dresden): classy old houses and monuments next to hypermodern shopping malls and business complexes. It sounds wrong on many levels, but somehow it works fine and old and new go together well.

 

Most beautiful place is definitely the city hall (Rathaus) and the square it borders. The city hall itself is a beautiful building, a sober version of a baroque building with a few statutes. The whole square itself shows a lot of old houses of which one is worth a few pictures of your camera's memory card. In front of the city hall you can find the Magdeburger Reiter, a sort of big lamppost with golden decorations and a small golden statue inside of a knight on a horse. Not a big statue, but a beautiful.

 

We then cross a few more modern squares, including some Stalinist-esque architectures and a nice fountain, and then arrive at the main sight of the city. The "Hundertmeere Haus" (house of 100 seas). Why it is called like that is beyond my understanding, but it is a great sight. Describing it is hard because rarely you will see something equally bizarre. It is like a pink mansion with all sort of other colours incorporated, very bizarre shapes in the wall, balconies in a really bizarre form like you would see in a fairytale, golden domes, and all sorts of bizarre shapes and abstract figures decorating the building. Inside is a small courtyard with a fountain. Extremely bizarre but a unique sight. Opposite of this are a few old mansions that nowadays house a bank.

 

Also worth seeing and only a stonethrow away from this bizarre building, is the Magdeburger Dom, an old cathedral which also is a more sober version of baroque but still too stylish to be classified as gothic. It is considered a gothic cathedral and is one of Germany's oldest in its sort, but I would personally say it is somewhere in the middle between gothic and baroque. A great sight for sure. Behind this church is a park and a small promenade along the river Elbe.

 

 

 

 

So Magdeburg is small, the historical center is really small. It is smaller than Leipzig and MUCH smaller than Dresden. But it is still worth a visit, even if only to see the incredibly bizarre Hundertmeere Haus... This building alone is so special that it is worth the trip to Magdeburg. And for those wanting a small stop on their way to bigger cities in the area, strolling 2 or 3 hours in Magdeburg would be ideal as it allows you perfectly to see the entire city. Summarised: the city is nothing special and certainly doesn't feel like a big city, but the few nice buildings are still nice enough to dedicate 2 or 3 hours to this city.

 

PS: I was lucky that, although the heatwave was over, it remained dry and cloudless. So no need to go durch den monsun, hinter die Welt, ans Ende der Zeit bis kein Regen mehr fällt...

 

 

 

 

Next stop should be Istanbul although there may be another short trip added somewhere in East Germany. If so, updates will follow in my blog.