Leipzig in 2 days, on foot

This 2-day self-guided walking plan for Leipzig covers 13 narrated sights in an easy day-by-day order. Each day is split into a morning and an afternoon loop, and every stop has a two to three minute audio story in the Gingerguide app.

You set the pace: this is a suggested order, not a schedule. Walk it in 2 days, or stretch it out. Reorder freely; Leipzig rewards a detour.

The Leipzig route at a glance

• Day 1
• Day 2

Day 1

Day 1 covers 7 stops and about 1.5 km on foot, from Bach Museum Leipzig to Mädler Passage and Auerbachs Keller. ≈ 1.5 km of walking, about 20 min

Morning

1. Bach Museum Leipzig: The Bach Museum in Leipzig, in the Baroque Bosehaus across the square from St Thomas Church, the home of a merchant family who were friends of Bach, with an exhibition on his life and music. 60 m on foot (1 min) to the next stop
2. St Thomas Church (Thomaskirche): St Thomas Church in Leipzig, the late-Gothic church where Johann Sebastian Bach was cantor from 1723 to 1750, home of the St Thomas Boys' Choir, where Bach is believed to be buried. 0.5 km on foot (6 min) to the next stop
3. Runde Ecke (Stasi Museum): The Runde Ecke in Leipzig, the building with the round corner where the Stasi, the GDR secret police, had its district office from 1950 to 1989, now a museum of the surveillance state. 0.5 km on foot (7 min) to the next stop
4. Museum of Fine Arts: The Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig, a glass cube of 2004 in the old town, with about 3,500 paintings from the late Middle Ages to the Leipzig School, and Max Klinger's Beethoven. 0.3 km on foot (4 min) to the next stop

Afternoon

1. Old Town Hall and Market Square: The Old Town Hall of Leipzig, a long Renaissance building of 1556 with an arcade and a clock tower on the market square, now the city history museum, where Bach signed his contract. 60 m on foot (1 min) to the next stop
2. Forum of Contemporary History: The Forum of Contemporary History in Leipzig, a free museum on division, dictatorship and the Peaceful Revolution in East Germany, with Wolfgang Mattheuer's bronze Step of the Century at its door. 70 m on foot (1 min) to the next stop
3. Mädler Passage and Auerbachs Keller: The Mädler Passage in Leipzig, a glass-roofed shopping arcade of 1914 modelled on the Galleria in Milan, and below it Auerbachs Keller, the wine cellar of a famous scene in Goethe's Faust.

Day 2

Day 2 covers 6 stops and about 3.2 km on foot, from St Nicholas Church (Nikolaikirche) to Spinnerei. 2 longer hops are best done by public transport or taxi. ≈ 3.2 km of walking, about 40 min

Morning

1. St Nicholas Church (Nikolaikirche): St Nicholas Church in Leipzig, with its white palm-tree columns, where weekly prayers for peace began in 1982 and led in autumn 1989 to the Monday demonstrations of the Peaceful Revolution. 0.2 km on foot (3 min) to the next stop
2. Augustusplatz: Augustusplatz, the great square on the east side of the old town of Leipzig, with the Gewandhaus concert hall, the Opera, the University and its new Paulinum, and the Mende Fountain of 1886. 0.6 km on foot (7 min) to the next stop
3. Grassi Museums: The Grassi in Leipzig, a museum building of the 1920s on Johannisplatz that houses three museums, of applied arts, musical instruments and ethnography, with a piano by the inventor of the piano. 3.3 km to the next stop: take transport

Afternoon

1. Monument to the Battle of the Nations: The Monument to the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig, a stone giant 91 metres high, opened in 1913, a hundred years after the battle of 1813 that ended Napoleon's rule in Germany. 2.3 km on foot (28 min) to the next stop
2. Panometer Leipzig: The Panometer in Leipzig, an old gas holder of 1909 and 1910 where the artist Yadegar Asisi shows huge round panorama pictures, about thirty metres high, seen from the centre of the room. 4.9 km to the next stop: take transport
3. Spinnerei: The Spinnerei in Leipzig, a cotton mill of 1884 that was billed as the largest in continental Europe, now a quarter of artists' studios, galleries, workshops and theatres in old brick halls.

Walking distances and times follow streets and footpaths (routing by openrouteservice.org, map data © OpenStreetMap contributors). Times are walking only, at an easy pace; add time at each stop.

Updated: October 28, 2026

Full Leipzig guide and all stops →