A day at the Porsche factory and a weekend in Leipzig
Leipzig, the city of great composers - as well as the Porsche factory
Leipzig, which also goes by the trendier name HypeZig, is a rather fascinating city. Here you’ll find an almost perfect mix of new and old. Johann Sebastian Bach lived here for most of his career. Here you will find the world’s largest Goth festival.
The biggest military battle ever, took place just outside the city in the year 1813. In the 19th century, the city was, along with Vienna, the center of classical music.
In 1989, the city saw increasingly larger demonstrations against the GDR regime that led to its fall and the fall of the Wall, and the seeds were laid for the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Friedrich Nietzche and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe studied here. 37,000 students today follow in their footsteps, which give the city a young and lively energy.
Let’s accelerate into the present – probably the primary reason you’ve reading this page: the Porsche factory just outside the city, the central element of this journey, is where we will drive on their race track and have our dinner at their futuristic restaurant.
We have put together a compact program over three days, which you can read about below.
(We have chosen to place all practical information about transport to this part of Germany at the end of the article).
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The Carrera Dinner at the Porsche Factory
As mentioned, close to Leipzig is the car brand Porsche’s factory. We will visit it on Thursday the 9th October. This is a fixed date, the only day in the fall of 2025, when Porsche could offer the below to us.
The factory is a world on its own. Here there is a restaurant that takes care of corporate events for companies with a certain heft. Plus takes care of the customers who pick up their brand new Porsche directly from the factory. They are offered a lunch at the factory’s expense. A nice gesture.
And who will take care of us, of course! We are honored that Porsche is opening their doors to us for the second time. Before we sit down at the table in their restaurant in classy surroundings, they’ll give us a tour of their factory, where we can be fascinated by the production. They are a bit secretive concerning the processes so we are not allowed to bring our camera or smart phone.
After our visit to the production buildings – and before dinner – we need to do one more thing…
Living in the Fast Lane
Included in the price of the trip, you will experience one hour of acceleration and g-forces on Porsche’s race track. Their event department has put 10 top-tuned sports cars at our disposal. You decide for yourself whether it should go quietly at 150 km/hour or whether you should really press the accelerator!
Usually, it costs €450 for the pleasure, but since we have bought for all our 40 guests, the price is different.
One more thing, we know from last visit, that this hour appeals to both sexes.
The video below shows what it looked like during one of our visits.
Our guided tour, racetrack tour, dinner and a welcome champagne are included in the price of the trip, while the absolutely reasonably priced wines are between you and the restaurant. Another plus: Their elevator can lift 13 tons, so we can all be taken up to the 3rd floor in one go.
Lichtnacht in Leipzig on the 9th October 2025
Every year on the evening of October the 9th, a metamorphosis of the city takes place. All the townspeople walk around in the streets with a candle in hand in memory of the aforementioned large demonstrations that took place in the town in the autumn of 1989.
A peace demonstration that managed to topple the entire GDR regime. And thus, also the parting shot for the beginning of the end of the entire Soviet Union. Without firing a single shot. Around 100,000 brave men and women who threw off the yoke.
We will therefore drive directly from the Porsche factory the same evening, into the city center and experience the atmosphere. Words can’t quite describe it. History relived.
Our Own Hop-on-Hop-off Bus
Leipzig is slightly smaller than Copenhagen in population with around 600,000 souls. In other words, a city that has a certain heft at the same time as being manageable for an extended weekend. There is one more thing: when the current state of Saxony was an independent state, before the proclamation of the German Empire in 1871, Dresden was the administrative center of the state, Leipzig its cultural ditto. There are still traces of this. (Dresden has a population of around half a million inhabitants as well).
There is still a very large concentration of cultural jewels in Leipzig. The city is also beautifully green, surrounded by large lakes. We will see a number of pearls and lakes alike in our own Hop-On-Hop-Off bus on Friday morning.
Those of you who choose one or more days after the ‘official’ end of the journey on Sunday, can then visit the places that have caught your eye, for example you could go to the Stasi Museum or the museum for fine artists, the Grassi museum, the botanical garden, the zoo, go canoeing or go on a bike ride. And then the city is “hip”. As a university city, young people have a considerable footprint on Leipzig.
The Völkerschlacht-denkmal Monument
During our Hop-on-Hop-Off trip we will also pass this pictured monster of an extreme Teutonic monument. The building stands 90 meters tall, its great hall 62 meters tall.
It commemorates the biggest military battle of all time, which took place here in the days 16th – 19th October 1813. Napoleon’s troops faced the Russian, Swedish, Prussian and Austro-Hungarian armies. Napoleon suffered his first military defeat and had to retreat. 4 against 1… it’s also a bit unfair.
All wars are tragic. Half a million men faced each other in those October days. 90,000 of them lost their lives and were buried in the area.
A morbid fact: When nature had done what it does, Leipzig residents dug up the skulls and sold them as memorabilia in the city’s tourist shops. This has since been abandoned.
Erich Honecker's Three-Course Meal
When we arrive at Friday evening on the 10th October, an East German time warp awaits us.
In Leipzig, there is plenty of opportunity to combine gastronomy and culture. We will visit a restaurant at the outskirts of the city, which has been faithful to the communist cuisine. The menu represents the dishes prior to 1989 with a good and strong taste of class struggle.
We have the whole living room to ourselves – and for our evening the food is not rationed. We also visited this restaurant in September 2024. Solid food, good beer, high spirits.
Tracking the Notenspur
Saturday 11th October 2025.
The photo shows the Grassi Museum, that has one of the world’s largest collections of period instruments, such as the lute, viola d’amore and clavichord, which from the early 19th century had no use in the modern symphony orchestra and therefore withered away. During the week, you have the opportunity to go on a rediscovery among these forgotten instruments, the sounds of which have faded, sounds that our great-great-grandparents regularly listened to.
However, what you should notice the most in the picture is the silver design on the pavement. It is the logo of the world’s only music route, Die Notenspur, which is embedded everywhere on the 3 miles long path, where you meet around 20 different musical historical posts.
For those who wish, we will cover one mile or so. Not only do we get a feel for the city’s importance to classical music, we also get to know the city as of today.
Johann Sebastian Bach - the Godfather of Classical Music
At 3.30 pm Saturday, we go to the most sacred of places in Leipzig, the Bach Museum, just opposite the church where Johann Sebastian Bach worked for a quarter of a century.
The museum is located where the Bose family lived. Bose were neighbors and close friends of Bach as well as godparents to one of Bach’s and his wife Anna-Magdalena’s children.
We will have a guided tour of this fine and modern museum and afterwards we have access to their concert hall, the Summer Saal where, in collaboration with the museum, we have arranged our own private concert with focus on Bach’s music.
Leipzig on Your Own
In addition to our Hop-on-Hop-off tour of the city, you might also want to visit Runde Ecke, the Stasi headquarters in the city, which the protesters avoided in 1989 because it was thought that the probability of being shot at from the authorities was greatest here.
Or visit the Mendelsohn Haus, on the same street as our hotel. Or explore the city’s architecture, strongly influenced by its East German past, such as the state archive pictured above.
Or have a look inside the Gewandhaus concert hall, which rises in majestic East German brutality on the main square of the city. It is known for its excellent acoustics.
The Gewandhaus building is in its third reincarnation. The first building was used as a concert hall in 1811, where the premiere of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony took place.
Felix Mendelsohn was the driving force behind this concert hall, and was the person who rediscovered Johann Sebastian Bach, who had been forgotten for almost a century.
Dorint, our Hotel in Leipzig
We have chosen the same hotel as the previous trip. Hotel Dorint is a decent, cozy and convenient hotel close to the city center. And there is a bottle of wine waiting for us all in our rooms.
We hope you have been tempted by the above program. We promise an extraordinary journey that you won’t soon forget. And now to all things practical.
Leipzig: An Hour's Flight, Two hours with a Bus
Our trips do not include flights. This is to give you the greatest possible flexibility, such as when you want to leave on the day and from where, as well as the option to extend your stay. Maybe you want to fly to Berlin and home via Prague. Several of our guests in September 2024 chose to drive by car. The possibilities are many. The choices are yours.
Unfortunately, there is no direct train connection to Leipzig from Berlin’s new airport. You have to go via Berlin’s main train station. Expect a train journey from the airport of approximately 2 hours to reach our hotel in Leipzig.
A Dinner the Day Before - on the 8th October 2025
For those of you who wants to arrive the day before, we can go to the following very charming restaurant.
Leipzig Bayerischer Bahnhof is Germany’s first dedicated railway station, which opened in 1842, and therefore at the same time as the Schumann family lived in the city. This Bahnhof has since been closed and transformed into a restaurant, where we will be served a special regional dish. This dinner is not included in the overall price.
We could end the evening at an elegant bar with a view of St. Thomas church, where J. S. Bach worked in the years 1723 until his death in 1750.
And our Purpose is?
We want to create exclusive experiences – without excluding anyone. Granted, our tours are not among the cheapest, but they are still accessible to most of those who walk in the footsteps of Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish poet who once said, ‘to travel is to live’.
The ‘trick’ is to be larger than small groups. We’re talking about around 40 people. Being many has its own dynamic.
And a larger budget allows us to offer truly unique adventures, that surely will be beyond most of us if we acted on our own. Our purpose is to tear us away from our day to day lives, to ensure that when you are back home again, you will ask yourself, ‘did I really experience what I think I experienced’?
What Exactly do you get for Your DKK 7,500? (1,000 euros).
- Three nights at the 4* hotel Dorint, breakfast included. Single room can be added.
- An hour’s drive in your own Porsche. Actually, you get two cars for the price of one.
- 2 dinners, inclusive of the gala dinner at the Porsche factory.
- Own Hop-on-Hop-Off bus and entrance to our Bach concert.
- Guided Notenspur tour.
Please Note
The amount covers accommodation and experiences in Leipzig only and does not include the flight.
This is, as pointed out, to give you maximum flexibility, such as when you fly on the day and from where. Maybe you also want to extend your stay.
If the trip is canceled from our end – regardless of the reason – we will compensate your flight ticket up to DKK 1,500/person or around £ 160.
