Snow Road Trip to Czech & Saxony, Germany - Day 5: Görlitz

We said Good-bye to Prague in the morning of Day 5 and drove north. Our next stop was Görlitz, the easternmost German town, situated on the border with Poland. The main reason why we visited there was that Görlitz was the prime filming location of The Grand Budapest Hotel. There were several spots in the Old Town that you can exactly find in the film.

The mix of colorful Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque buildings on the narrow streets created Wes Anderson's world in real. 

The Christmas market was set around the historic Old Town center. It wasn't open yet around noon, when we got there.

Actually many restaurants in the Old Town looked closed at that time. Where would people have lunch? We happened to find a cafe that was open and decided to see what they offer. It was a pretty chilly day. At least being in a warm room for a while sounded attractive. 

Caféhaus Lucullus was a lovely coffee shop. They serve drinks, such as coffee, tea and hot chocolate, and also homemade cakes. We both had tea and ordered two kinds of traditional regional cakes to share. One was a cherry cream rolled cake. I forgot the name, it was delightful. I wish I could have another slice. 

The other was Mohnpielen, also known Mohnklöße. It's a poppy seed dumpling and a traditional Silesian Christmas dessert. I have never seen it before. As a poppy seed pastry fan, I was very excited to taste it. The texture was grainy (I wondered how many poppy seeds were in there) but tender and moist. The dumpling itself wasn't too sweet. Whipped cream and egg liquor were lovely garnishes. I loved the dessert so much. I would like to make one by myself.

The coffee shop was housed in a historical building that used to be the house of Bartholomew Scultetus, who was a mayor of Görlitz, a chronicler and historiographer, as well as an astronomer and mathematician, between 1570 and 1614. The building had a beautiful inner courtyard, where the coffee shop displayed their handmade Silesian poppy seed stollen. We took one of the stollen and their Liegnitz bomb, a gingerbread specialty from Liegnitz in Lower Silesia. By the way I wasn't familiar with Silesia until this trip. It was a great opportunity to learn the historical region a little bit on Internet and experience the regional desserts. 

After the wonderful tea time, which unintentionally became our lunch, we visited Barockhaus museum. Built in the 1720's, the Baroque house was originally a residential and commercial building for the textile merchant, Johann Christian Ameiß. The building belonged to the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences after 1801, which was founded in Görlitz in 1779 and brought together humanities and natural scientists around the region in order to have a non-profit effect according to the understanding of the Enlightenment. After the WWII, the building became the property of the city of Görlitz and today opens for public to be a museum that exhibits Baroque civil culture and the extensive collections of the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences.

The museum was much bigger than I expected, which has more than 40 exhibition rooms on two floors. 

The Library of the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences looked both functional and aesthetic. 

The 1800's Tellurium was one of many fine scientific objects there.

A museum lady kindly explained to us the concept of the initial electric battery system. How neat!

When we finished the museum tour, we found the town's Christmas market open. 

I had original Thüringer Roster. Thüringer Bratwurst is a regional sausage from Thuringia, the neighbor state of Saxony in which Görlitz is located. The sausage has been around since the 15th century while the specific recipe was developed in the early 17th century. It's made of pork, seasoned with garlic, caraway, marjoram, onions and mustard in addition to salt and pepper. It tasted just like a sausage but in a very good way.

J tried Thüringer Rauchwurst. I believe he enjoyed it. He also had a cup of Glühwein. How could he have been happier?

It seemed that Trdelník was popular in Görlitz, crossing the Czech border. We didn't take another chance, though...

Instead we bought a little bag of candied almonds. The quality of candied almonds at a Christmas market seems stable and reliable. 

More people came from somewhere and the Christmas market was getting crowded.

We weren't sure whether our tummies were satisfied for the day. We entered a cafe in front of the little train set-up at the Christmas market and had a vegetable Flammkuchen along with hot tea. That was just enough to get ready to sleep.

To be continued...