Breakfast costs an additional €15 (£10) per person.Further informationGerman National Tourist Board (0207-317 0908; ) and see . GIVE ME THE FACTS How to get thereThe writer travelled as a guest of the German National Tourist Office and Lufthansa (0870-8377 747; ). It offers return fares to Hannover from Heathrow from £210 return. Return rail tickets for the three-hour journey from Hannover to Leipzig cost €86 (£58) booked through Deutsche Bahn (08702 43 53 63; ).
The stadium has been built inside the old one, making it unique in the world A bit like Leipzig. It's these bars which will doubtless attract World Cup fans next year, when Leipzig's football stadium will take centre stage. Although not known as a football hotbed, it was Leipzig where the German Football Foundation was founded in 1900. The Barthels restaurant here is the city's oldest, with Saxon specialities on the menu.
Madler Passage is a must, not least for Auerbach's Keller, the ancient restaurant where Goethe set one of the chapters in Faust, and the Mephisto bar, one of Germany's best - according to Playboy magazineWe were entranced by St Thomas Church where JS Bach spent 27 years as cantor. In the warm evening dusk of Leipzig there can be little more uplifting experience than sitting in one of the caf?or bars in Thomaskirche square, listening to the strains of Bach's sublime organ compositions drift through the night air. Not much about the 12th-century church and surrounding small square has changed since the days when Bach arrived in Leipzig with his children. His statue stands outside the church with one pocket turned out - he was continually broke. St Thomas hosted Martin Luther's introduction of the Reformation in 1539 and both Mozart and Mendelssohn have played the organ here.When we visited, a choir from Minnesota made the mistake of mentioning to Birgit that they were about to perform an impromptu rendition of one of Bach's cantatas. Call it religious karaoke (choiroke?) if you will - choirs from all over the world are inspired to sing where Bach composed and is now interred "Where's your permit?" Birgit called to them. "You think you can just invade our church singing when you want.
