leipzig
I spent 5 days in Leipzig for the Bach festival, an annual event dedicated to the music of Bach. In that time I attended 5 major concerts, 3 church services, and 6 smaller concerts. Leipzig is a smallish, manageable town with a pretty historical centre and I walked everywhere between my lovely apartment and 4 different venues.
The only thing I did while in Leipzig, other than music, was visit the old Stasi headquarters which is now a museum run by volunteers. It absolutely demonstrates the banality of evil, some of the spying techniques would be ridiculously comical, if only they hadn’t had such a brutal impact on people’s lives. The people of Leipzig are justifiably proud that the uprising against the authoritarian East German regime started here.
I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to food, but Leipzig apparently is one of Germany’s most vegan friendly cities. They do have a Veganz supermarket with a Goodies Cafe inside, but the other handful of vegan restaurants I found are several kilometers outside the city ring. I didn’t get to them as I was too busy racing from one concert to the next.
Eventually, I worked out what they meant by vegan friendly. I’m a compulsive menu reader and almost every mainstream restaurant has a couple of vegan dishes on the menu that are clearly marked.
I had a small kitchen in my apartment so I stocked up on both breakfast and sandwich making ingredients at Veganz. Breakfast has been lots of strawberries which are in season right now. They are not like the varieties we get at home. They are quite fragile, very sweet and aromatic. I made my lunch most days.
One of my favourite spots to eat has been a salad and curry place called Dean and David just a couple of minutes walk from my apartment. They are part of a chain that is all over Germany. They have vegan curry and soup on their menu every day as well as build your own salads. My favourite was the Thai yellow curry pictured above.
Veganz
Nikolaistraße 53
04109 Leipzig
dean & david
Höfe am Brühl
Brühl 1
04109 Leipzig