Dresden, Germany

Here's me and Katie waiting at the train station to go to Germany for the first time! It was also Katie's first time riding a train. It was so packed that we had to stand the entire 2.25 hour trip! But it wasn't actually that bad, because the view was worth it. The pictures below are from the train. We followed the Vltava most of the way, and at some point the Vltava and Elbe combine into one giant river, and we followed the Elbe the rest of the way to Dresden.

This is one of the first sights you encounter when you exit the main train station in Dresden. It is also where we hung out for a little over an hour on Sunday afternoon, waiting for our train home. It is like an outdoor mall with lots of shops and stores, but on Sundays they were all closed! Regardless, there were hundreds of people congregated around the fountains, most of them with McDonald's bags, which is just off to the right in this top picture. The picture below is the same plaza from the other end. There was a person on stilts next to the giant metal statue.

The flowers above are in another plaza similar to the first one, but this one is a little further north, as you walk from the train station towards the Neustadt, or New Town. Below was our first encounted with the Altstadt, Old Town. You can see the modern buildings in the foreground and the older buildings in the background. The next photo is a close up of just the old buildings. In this same square we found a street market with at least 4 different stands selling only bratwurst...it is pictured below.

The heart of Altstadt is the Fraunekirche, which is the Church of Our Lady. There happens to be a huge statue of Martin Luther out front. But it is quite an eye-catching building, as you can tell from the picture. There is a giant square that reminded me a lot of Rome, and old buildings with quaint-looking restaurants all over this square. Below is just another shot of the Frauenkirche, from the back.

In front of the Frauenkirche is where the street actors congregate. Actually we only saw these two here. If you put change in the silver man's cup, he does a little bending act, but otherwise he's totally still. A much better act than these crazy yellow people, who just look around and move like normal people wearing yellow sheets and masks.

Here's the rest of the Altstadt square.

Walking from the Frauenkirche to the Elbe, you come across this statue which was almost a perfect chair. You can see the peach-ish Frauenkirche behind me.

This shot above is one of my favorite pictures of Dresden. It shows what a great Altstadt the city has! The greenery was very well kept up, and there were fountains and old buildings. What more could you ask for? Giant murals on the sides of buildings? You got it! (see below)

There was even a grand piano in the middle of the square.
The square above is called Theaterplatz, and the building is the Opera house. It was beautiful. It sits just next to the street that runs parallel to the river, and on the other side is the Zwinger Gallery, which is the other main attraction of the city. In the photo of me below, you can see the Altstadt, and the Zwinger and Opera house are those old buildings to my left.

When you enter the Zwinger gallery from the front, you pass through this building, which is the Glockenspiel Pavilion. You can climb the stairs here or on the far end of the courtyard. I recommend walking around the courtyard first, but plan to spend at least 30 minutes just walking around the outside of the gallery! We actually didn't even go inside but chose to enjoy what we could see of the porcelain, statues and other art from the huge windows. Anyway, when you come in the building above, you see the view in the pictures below.

These next few pictures I took after we had climbed the stairs to the balcony level. There was a big fountain with tons of statues here at the far side of the courtyard.

I wasn't actually trying to get a picture of a baby's butt for this next shot. I wanted to have a picture that shows the moat, which I believe is a remnant of the days when this place was actually a fortress, not an art gallery. Of course, Dresden is most famous for the horrible bombing in 1945, after it had almost escaped unscathed. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed and priceless buildings were destroyed. There is a kind of monument outside the Zwinger that may have been in memory of those killed, although I was very confused because with my limited knowledge of German, it seemed to me that the artist had lived in the 1800s.

Again, the Glockenspiel Pavilion is behind me, with some other Altstadt sights.

Above is the monument I was mentioning a minute ago. Below is our tram stop at the hostel.
While we were walking around by the river, we came across this mural. The artist was actually painting on the other side of the building as we staged these photos. Can you tell which one is me?

The riverwalk is something I highly recommend for those people in shape. It was a 45-60 minute walk along the river on a paved path, and I don't know how many hundreds of people we ran into. Walkers like us, but also plenty of exercisers, with bikes and rollerblades too. At the end of the riverwalk is the Blaues Wunder, which you'll see in a minute. But these old castle-like buildings were also nice to see. And check out the irrigation system they have set up on the hills! Also if you look closely you'll see the German flag hanging from this boat. These are the only German flags I could find in the whole city!


I thought this house looked very classic German, so Katie took a picture of me holding it! And finally, at the end of the riverwalk, the long-awaited Blaues Wunder, a blue bridge that was an architectural triumph at the time, but seems now to be nothing special. Anyway, the houses on the hill near it were nice, and you can see one of those cable-car lift-things going up the hill.

The last thing we did was visit the Hygiene Museum, which was a science museum with a focus on the human body. It was interactive and we had a pretty good time. The outside was great - it was in a large green area with some beautiful trees and we were so lucky to have a fantastic weather weekend for our trip.

And finally, some murals on the train tracks running through the city. Although we walked around a bit, the Altstadt was really the thing to see, so I was glad we hadn't planned to be there for longer than a couple days. But I'm so glad I got to see it!