Hello, my name’s Beth and I’m terrible with directions.

With this in mind, and with the knowledge that I had really done very little preparation in terms of looking at maps and other important things like where to go, I arrived in Leipzig on Saturday with nothing more than an unnecessarily overfilled backpack, and a lot of enthusiasm.

And, yeah, I got lost a bit. But that’s always half the fun.

Leipzig lies west of Dresden in Saxony, and it had long been on my list of places to go before I leave Germany. It over-exceeded even my high expectations, however, with its history, beauty, and its overall really cool vibe. It’s so different to Dresden, and it was weird how quickly I noticed that. Maybe it was the sun which shined above all day and tricked me into thinking that summer is coming, or maybe it was just the change in scenery, but there was something about Leipzig which I really really loved, and I only wish I could have spent more time there than the eight hours I did.

A highlight included the skin-tingling moment I spent standing outside the Nikolaikirche where some 320,000 people demonstrated against the GDR in the build up to the fall of the wall 25 years ago. It was something I had learnt about at school, and so to be there in the flesh was a pretty wonderful moment. I was also lucky enough to be shown around by a friend in the afternoon, and he showed me the parts of the city I would never have discovered on my own: the park where the locals hang out, the bridge with the beautiful view over the river Elster, the hill you have to climb to get the best views of the city. And that’s the reason why my photos get unexpectedly, but happily, all rural at the end.