tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-1141935304712863662006-03-09T20:15:00.000Z2006-03-09T20:15:00.000ZHi Garth and many thanks for your kind words, and yes we were lucky with the weather. But we had quite a bit of snow which could have caused a problem for the return flight. Ryanair's highly profitable business model involves finding municipal airfields in the middle of nowhere, and then getting the local town to pay handsomely for the privilege of a daily flight which brings tourist money. Altenburg is a perfect example, a disused Lufwaffe base complete still with numerous blast shelters. The once a day Ryanair flight is the only commercial traffic - thankfully the runways were clear of snow, but I would not like to be there in a blizzard.<BR/><BR/>Leipzig is one big building site. The main project is the 'city tunnel' which puts rail links across the city centre, but currently means virtually every public space is a large hole with pile-drivers, look to the left in my photo of St Thomas' and you can see the omni-present scaffolding. As you say many old buildings have been renovated, but the problem remains of the communist public housing. The four large GDR apartment blocks between the main railway station and the city centre (next to the new Art Museum) are all empty (complete still with <I>Welcome to Leipzig</I> in Russian on one fascia!) awaiting demolition.<BR/><BR/>Even sixteen years after <I>Wende</I> the economic blight is startingly evident, particularly outside the cities. Everywhere there are empty houses, derelict factories and warehouses,and disused railway buildings - many pock-marked still with bullet and shell scars from WWll. The green shoots are definitely there, and town centres such as Zwickau are immaculate because all the infra-structure is new. But travel on the trains and you see the huge challenges facing the whole German economy. Yes, we even saw Trabants on the road, and I have a photo for my next article to prove it.<BR/><BR/>I can confirm the <I>Universitatschochhaus</I> is still the broadcast base for the Leipzig channel of MDR, and by the miracle of the internet I listen to Telemann's <I>Der Herr ist König, TWV 8:6 (Kantate für Sopran, Tenor, Baß, 4stimmigen</I> being webcast by MDR as I type, just follow <A HREF="http://www.mdr.de/multimedia/1339726-h.html" REL="nofollow">this link </A> to listen.Pliablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10616598845886342325noreply@blogger.com