Voelkerschlachtdenkmal

In 1913, a monument was built to honor those who died in a battle with Napoleon in 1813. We didn’t have a lot of time to go through the museum and didn’t get much of the history (Ainslie apparently didn’t find it interesting enough and insisted on going outside), but the monument itself is very impressive.
(Note, the monument doesn’t really tip like the picture would suggest. We couldn’t find a flat place to put the camera.)

On the inside of the monument is a large hall with imposing statutes that seem to carry the weight of war on their shoulders.
The hall had an almost reverent feeling, so when Ainslie started to wake up, we thought we should probably step outside. We were about to leave, but Josh thought it would be a good idea to check with one of the staff at the monument if there was anything else to see. We had heard something about a lot of stairs to some impressive views of the town, but we hadn’t seen anything like that inside. The man responded with a smile that there definitely were more stairs, and we later understood the smile to mean that there were a LOT more stairs and that the climb is well worth it.
The stairs seemed to go forever, and the climb gets tighter and tighter as you move up. However, we were rewarded with some spectacular views of our temporary home away from home when we got to the top.

Ainslie thought it was awesome too.


When we were on top we saw an impressive looking building down below that we hadn’t noticed on the way up. So, when we got to the bottom we did a little exploring and found an entrance.

We still haven’t found out for sure what the history behind the building is, but it’s surround by a very beautiful cemetery. We walked around for a while enjoying the quiet beauty, and Janae made friends with a little 14 month old girl who followed us around until she could give Janae a hug.
We’ve seen a lot of great things here in Leipzig, and we’re looking forward to getting out into some of the other cities to see what else there is to see. We have some other pictures from the town center that we’ll try to post soon.