Dresden

Wednesday, 30 September

We now feel very familiar with our local station in Bleibtreu Strasse. Trains come frequently and take us to the Hauptbahnhof, with which we also feel familiar. Today we breakfasted there before boarding our train to Dresden. Everyone in our compartment slept most of the way, about a two hour trip.

Dresden is just as wonderful as we had been told. We started by doing the two hour bus tour of the city - great for looking but not so good for photos. When we hopped off the bus we wandered though the old town with its palaces, churches and pretty squares. Had soup for lunch in Neuplatz- New Square. Lorraine had cream of carrot and I had spring minestrone, so we both felt we'd had a good lot of vegetables to make up for a bit of a lack in that direction lately.

On the tour we were very taken with the story of the Tummel Frauen, the women who, after the war, cleared the rubble of Dresden in preparation for the rebuilding of the city. We found our way back to the sculpture commemorating them so that we could take a photo. Restoration work is still going on and what they have achieved is really remarkable. We both feel our knowledge of the bombing of Dresden needs improvement.

We have been enjoying seeing Ampelman at pedestrian crossings in the old East Germany. There are many Ampelman souvenirs in the shops but so far we have resisted.

We made it back to the station in plenty of time for our return journey to Berlin. Amazingly for Germany, the train was running late. I was keen to try Flammkuchen so we stopped at a lovely cafe that advertised them on our way home from the station. They are like very thin pizzas, tasty but a bit of a challenge to eat.

We've had a lovely day and would gladly return to Dresden for a longer stay.

 

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