Leipzig & Western Saxony

The more industrialised western part of Saxony centres on Leipzig, a green, hip and vibrant city with many stories to tell and places to enjoy. Hugely important in the history of music, it was home to Johann Sebastian Bach and Richard Wagner. To the south, Chemnitz is still full of vestiges of GDR-era Soviet influence, including a huge head of Karl Marx in the central square, but is now home to several exciting museums, including the newly opened state-of-the art SMAC museum of archaeology and prehistory. The lovely university town of Freiberg boasts a fantastic collection of minerals and a visitable ore mine, while Zwickau's former Audi factory has been turned into an outstanding museum presenting Germany's complicated 20th-century history as a succession of gleaming retro cars, including the inevitable Trabbies in all shapes and forms.

Top attractions

These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Leipzig & Western Saxony.

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Nikolaikirche
This church has Romanesque and Gothic roots, but since 1797 has sported a striking neoclassical interior with palm-like pillars and cream-coloured pews. While the design is certainly gorgeous, the church is most famous for playing a key role in the nonviolent movement that led to the downfall of the East German government. As early as 1982 it hosted ‘peace prayers’ every Monday at 5pm (still held today), which over time inspired and empowered local citizens to confront the injustices plaguing their country. Starting in September 1989, the prayers were followed by candlelight demonstrations, which reached their peak on 9 October when 70,000 citizens took to the streets. The military, police and secret police stood ready to suppress the protests, as they had so violently done only two days earlier. But the order never came. The GDR leadership had capitulated. A singular palm-topped column outside the church commemorates this peaceful revolution.
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Museen im Grassi
The university-run Museen im Grassi harbours three fantastic collections that are often overlooked, despite being a five-minute walk from Augustusplatz. At the stellar Musikinstrumenten-Museum you can discover music from five centuries in rarity-filled exhibits and an interactive sound laboratory. The Museum für Völkerkunde takes you on an eye-opening journey through the cultures of the world. The Museum für Angewandte Kunst has an excellent art nouveau and art deco furniture, porcelain, glass and ceramics collection.
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Museum der Bildenden Künste
This imposing modernist glass cube is the home of Leipzig's fine art museum and its world-class collection of paintings from the 15th century to today, including works by Caspar David Friedrich, Cranach, Munch and Monet. Highlights include rooms dedicated to native sons Max Beckmann, Max Klinger and Neo Rauch. Exhibits are playfully juxtaposed and include sculpture, installation and religious art. The collection is enormous, so set aside at least two hours to do it justice.
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Asisi Panometer
The happy marriage of a pano rama (a giant 360-degree painting) and a gas ometer (a giant gas tank) is a panometer. The unusual concept is the brainchild of Berlin-based artist Yadegar Asisi, who uses paper and pencil and computer technology to create bafflingly detailed monumental scenes drawn from nature or history. Each work is about 100m long and 30m high.
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Museum für Völkerkunde
At Leipzig's Ethnological Museum, you can plunge into an eye-opening journey through the cultures of the world. It's in the Grassi museum complex.
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Südfriedhof
Leipzig's largest cemetery is a vast and beautiful park, filled with rosebay shrubs, populated by squirrels, rabbits and foxes and centred on a building that looks like a Disneyland castle, but is in fact a purpose-built crematorium. A monument to antifascists who died at the hands of the Nazis can be found in front of the building. The cemetery is a last resting place of Leipzig's many celebrities, including artist Max Klinger and the Baedeker family of travel guide fame. The cemetery surrounds Völkerschlachtdenkmal, so plan your visit to see both in one go.
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Stasi Museum
In the GDR the walls had ears, as is chillingly documented in this exhibit in the former Leipzig headquarters of the East German secret police (the Stasi), a building known as the Runde Ecke (Round Corner). English-language audioguides (€4) aid in understanding the all-German displays on propaganda, preposterous disguises, cunning surveillance devices, recruitment (even among children), scent storage and other chilling machinations. All reveal the GDR’s all-out zeal when it came to controlling, manipulating and repressing its own people.
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Zeitgeschichtliches Forum
This fascinating, enormous and well-curated exhibit covers the political history of the GDR, from division and dictatorship to fall-of-the-Wall ecstasy and post-Wende blues. It's essential viewing for anyone seeking to understand the late country's political power apparatus, the systematic oppression of regime critics, milestones in inter-German and international relations, and the opposition movement that led to its downfall. The permanent exhibition was closed for reconstruction at the time of research and due to reopen in 2019.
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Völkerschlachtdenkmal
Half a million soldiers fought – and one in five died – in the epic 1813 battle that led to the decisive victory of Prussian, Austrian and Russian forces over Napoleon’s army. Built a century later near the killing fields, the Völkerschlachtdenkmal is a 91m colossus, towering sombrely like something straight out of Gotham City. Views from the top are monumental. If you need to bone up on your history, stop by the integrated Forum 1813 exhibit within the monument complex.