1936 On the Continent

II, built the Festival Theatre. The Festival performances are still under the direction of Wagner’s descendants, and enjoy the fullest support of the German Reich. Adolf Hitler, himself a great music-lover, appears regularly at the Festival performances. This year they begin on July 19th and last till July 30th. During the Olympic games Bayreuth has a rest, then the performances will start again on August 18th and continue till August 31st. The tickets are generally all sold weeks beforehand; on an average they cost 30 marks for a single performance, whilst tickets for the whole of the “Ring der Niebelungen,” that is the whole cycle, cost 120 marks. Apart from the Richard Wagner Museum, Bayreuth has nothing very interesting to offer, but the Markgrafenpalast and the Neue Palast, in rococo style, are worth a glance. On the whole therefore it is only worth going to Bayreuth for the Festival. The town has 37,000 inhabitants and six good hotels. As the hotel accommodation is never sufficient, many of the visitors to the Festival stay in the district around Bayreuth.
Saxony and Leipzig
    “Leipzig … you won’t enjoy yourself much there,” a gentleman from Berlin said to me in the D train between Nüremberg and Leipzig, as we left the old frontier of Bavaria at Hof.
    I have now been twenty-four hours in Leipzig and cannot understand his remark. I find it delightful here and should like to stay longer. Leipzig has not much in the way of antiquities to offer like the famous towns of South Germany, and may well be overshadowed in actual beauty by her sister town of Dresden, which I shall see to-morrow. But I do not agree that in a town the past is of supreme importance. Though I have only a superficial knowledge of style, I find at least as much pleasure in the modern buildings, the bustle and traffic of a big town.
    Leipzig is also accused of having no “surroundings.” Yes, that is true—continental people are accustomed to this, and if no mountains raise their heads round about a town, and no blue lake is to be seen shimmering round the last street corner, or there are no romantic woods to visitin the evenings, they say the town is worthless. Although I admit that the walks in the Pleisse, where the air smells rather of garlic than of flowers (it is one of the secrets of Leipzig why the most beautiful parts of the town smell unaccountably of garlic), are not to be compared with the Nymphenburger Park in Munich or with the wooded hills of Stuttgart, all the same I find it charming. Nevertheless, the highest mountain, the Scherbelberg, which rises from the dull plain on which lies this largest Saxon town with its 720,000 inhabitants, is only a few metres high, and it cannot thank nature for its origin, mostly consisting of the rubbish which has been thrown here for many centuries. To-day, however, one takes no notice of that, for the Scherbelberg, with its comical look-out tower, makes quite an imposing impression. Leipzig also has a park called the Rosengarten, which is not comparable with our Hyde Park, but which offers sufficient opportunity for pleasant walks and quiet love-making. Also I noticed that this so-called ugly town is surrounded by a girdle of tree-bordered roads and small parks, which gives it a very friendly air.
Leipzig Railway Station and Hotels
    At the railway station it is evident how welcoming to its visitors this Fair town is. It is certainly the most beautiful station which has been built in Europe in recent years. It is the largest in Germany, but its size is not at all overpowering. It is situated in the middle of the town, and on walking out of it one finds oneself right in the midst of the life of Leipzig. The huge building fits so well into the picture that I could not imagine Leipzig without it. In Leipzig it is no smelly but necessary feature as elsewhere—here I can’t help thinking of London—but a completion and a beautifying of the town.
    Round about it lie most of the first-class hotels. It is no wonder that Leipzig has many good hotels, as the town, on account of its two fairs and other commercial activities, is prepared for the reception of hundreds of thousands of strangers. The most modern of the large hotels is the Astoria, near the station, with excellent cooking. Price about 8 to 10 marks for a single room. The rather out-of-the-way Hotel Hauffe, near the Rossplatz,is distinctive, and in the same class are the Kaiserhof and the Fürstenhof, both of them only a few