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On the morning of heading to Zwickau, the birthplace of Robert Schumann, I had breakfast at Riquet, a beautiful traditional Viennese Kaffeehaus, in lieu of having one at the hotel. This Kaffeehaus was strongly recommended in my various travel guides, and luckily it was just one minute away from my hotel! So why not? Welcomed by the two elephant heads at the entrance door, I slowly opened it and walked in. |
Built in 1908, the interior was decorated in the Art Nouveau style. |
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| There were an adult elephant and a baby elephant displayed right by the window. The elephants represent Riquet's trademark. | The staff were friendly and I had quite delicious American breakfast. It was so comfortable with a cozy ambience here that made me hard to leave, but it was time for me to go to the station to head to Zwickau. |
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Departing at 10:41 from Markt station on the S-Bahn commuter and suburban rail systems, it took me directly to Zwickau from the Market Square so I didn't have to bother going to the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, central station. |
Looking at the peaceful and tranquil scenery of Saxony from the train, I was thinking how many times Robert Schumann traveled between Zwickau and Leipzig, saw this landscape, and perhaps, he might have conjure up some of this musical piece out of this beautiful landscape. |
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| On the table right in front of me was a route map of this railway by which I constantly checked where I was throughout my journey to Zwickau. | After a 75-minute train ride, I arrived at the Zwickau Hauptbahnhof. |
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I was extremely exultant to be able to come to Zwickau finally, but as I exited the station, it was eerily quiet with almost no one in sight. At this point, I was a little concerned if I could manage to get to Hauptmarkt where the Robert-Schumann-Haus was located. It was just 12 noon. I made for a bus stop that I hoped it would be anyway, and waited for a bus to Neumarkt to transfer to Hauptmarkt via tram, wondering when and if it would ever come. |
I asked the bus driver if the bus would go to Neumarkt, but he didn't understand English, which I felt a bit unusual for Germans, but I boarded the bus anyway as there were two passengers waiting behind me. I then asked one of the passengers who seemed to be a teenager the same question, and he said, "yes." And five minutes later, I was relieved to get to Neumarkt and got off there to transfer to a tram heading to Hauptmarkt. |
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| From Neumarkt to Hauptmarkt took only a few minutes. As I got off the tram, the monument to Robert Schumann was right in front of my very eyes! | This statue is titled, "Robert Schumann's Lost Dreams." I think it really represents Schumann's character - sitting pensively with his head resting on his hand and thinking about something. |
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Only one minute from the Schumann statue, I easily found the house in which Robert Schumann was born. |
The wall of his birth house reads, "Robert Schumann was born on June 8, 1810." |
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| The entrance was on the corner of the opposite side of the house. | I walked into the house from there. | |
