You Go Nate!

How I Spent My Sommer Vacation - Part VI (July 13th-14th):
"THE BALCONY OF EUROPE"

..and no, I didn't dangle any babies off of it.

I left Leipzig as the sun was finally starting to come out, giving me a pretty and scenic ride deeper into Saxony, to the city of Dresden.

Everyone who's been to Dresden has raved about what a cool city it is. I arrived at my hostel, which was a little ways out of the Old Town, and met my roommates: an Australian guy and an Australian girl. Not together. So there were three of us in a four-bed room. I got stuck with the top bunk... more on that later.

The sun was sinking fast and I wanted to hurry and make it to the Old Town to get some nice evening shots. I hopped on the tram and was on my way. As the tram crossed the bridge I was stunned at the site. I got off the next stop and went back to the bridge. I spent some good time there as the sun went down, taking pictures of the Old Town over the Elbe River.

The light is dimming....




...Dusk...




...Evening...




...Twilight...




...Night!

I was pretty tired so I went back to my hostel. When I went to climb into the top bunk I realized that there was no railing! I was pretty high up and I thought that if I fell, I would probably die or at least break an expensive Australian alarm clock. So I pretty much hugged the wall the whole night. Though at one point I woke up a bit dizzy and found myself teetering on the edge of disaster!

Then I went back to sleep and slept until the jackhammer across the street started at 6:30AM. I think there's an international law that states that jackhammers can only be used between the hours of 6AM and 9AM.

I was excited for my day, however, so I grabbed all my stuff and headed out into the city.

On first approach of the city I was impressed once again by the Baroque stateliness of it all. Dresden was the capital of the Saxon Kingdom and its kings built great churches and palaces especially during the 18th century. In World War II, Allied forces firebombed the city and completely leveled the magnificent Old Town. Slowly but surely, in the years after the war, the town was rebuilt with most of the buildings the way they were before the war. In many cases the salvageable original stones and bricks were put back into the reconstruction. Today you would hardly know there was such destruction only 60 years ago. You do, however, see a few signs of the Communist days that were to come.

Dresden on approach...

Riverboats line the shores of the Elbe taking passengers on day-cruises.

Dresden's opera house, the "Semperoper" named after its architect, is one of the most famous in the world. It has been destroyed several times throughout its history and has always been rebuilt in more-or-less the same way.

This is where Richard Wagner premiered The Flying Dutchman, Rienzi, and Tannhäuser; and where the Munich composer Richard Strauss premiered Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, and Salome (Strauss's Die Alpensinfonie was also premiered in Dresden but somewhere else.)

Right next door is the Zwinger Palace. This fancy shmancy Baroque palace was built by August the Strong, King of Saxony and Poland, in the early 18th century after he had toured the splendour of King Louis XIV's palace in Versailles. It sits upon the old fortress of Dresden and now houses several museums (all closed when I was there because it was Monday: "Museum=Closed"-Day).

It was quite splendid...

The Crown Gate was especially maaaarvelous....

...and there were Baroque scuptures and fat little angel babies everywhere you looked...

I pride myself on having good photographs with no tourists in the picture anywhere. It takes patience and good timing...

Next it was on to the Frauenkirche, or "The Church of Our Lady." This great Protestant church was an engineering marvel when completed in 1743, particularly it's enormous high dome. At first people thought it would collapse on itself, but it proved to be very strong indeed as several cannon balls struck it during the Seven-Years-War and simply bounced off. It was not strong enough, however, to endure the intense fire-bombing which occurred in 1945. The church burned for several days with temperatures of over 1,000 degrees Celsius, then it collapsed.

It was one of the last major Dresden landmarks to be rebuilt. Each piece of rubble was carefully cataloged and the church was rebuilt using as much of the original material as possible and with the exact same architectural plans as the original. It was finally completed in 2005.

You can see which stones are original (the darker ones)....

The inside is huge...

Near the Frauenkirche is the Fürstenzug, a ceramic parade of all the kings of Saxony from the early Middle-Ages until the mid-1800's when the wall was built. It actually survived the fire bombing.

Before long, I was ready for lunch. I found a nice biergarten across the river with a good lunch menu. I ordered a Schnitzel with roast potatoes and an apfelschorle to drink (basically carbonated apple juice... I'm drinking one right now in fact.) I sat down on the terrace and had a very scenic lunch.

The site of old buildings tends to make food taste better, and so this tasted great!

Then I had a little nap by the banks of the river and then it was back into the city...

Here's the Semperoper from the Zwinger...

Spires over the Zwinger...

Behind the Zwinger. You can see the old fortress wall upon which the palace is built...

This grand view, overlooking the Elbe river, is known as "The Balcony of Europe."

Now I think this is a bit of a misnomer because the view OF the "balcony" (above) is better than the view FROM the "balcony":

Unless you're looking behind the "balcony" in which case, there are some good views there...

More balconiage....

There are some things in Dresden that seem as out of place as Stagg chili on ice cream. I'm of course referring to the Communist buildings and murals that still exist right next to some of these great buildings of the past...

Soon it was night again and I hustled around the city getting some farewell night shots...

I went back to the hostel as pooped as pie. I slept well, and didn't die, and woke up the next morning to head off to my next destination....

Dresden Picasa Album:

Dresden

Next time: The Heart and Heaven of Silesia, Nate gets thrown off a train, he visits a new country! and you longitudinal nuts out there will go KaRAZY!!!


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