Day trip to Dresden

I have gotten a lot of slack from people lately. Everyone wants to know why I haven't posted anything about our Europe trip. Truth is - we didn't end up going. We decided to stay in town and camp out in the house for 12 days. What? I can't pull one past you, huh? Ok, fine, I've just been extremely busy catching up with work since I got home. But I'm tired of hearing all of the whining, so I put my nose to the grindstone to be able to get out at least SOME of the photos. In fact, this is only a very small portion of our trip. While we were in Prague we decided to take a day trip to Dresden, Germany. While it did cut almost an entire day off our Prague trip (which does sadden me greatly), Dresden was also amazing. The way the city was devastated during World War II and how it has come back to life - wow. It was so beautiful! There was so much green space, which I think is why we ultimately loved it so much. We always like to check out areas where the doggies can play when we are in new places. And when we ate lunch at a nice little outdoor cafe in the town square, we truly experienced the language barrier for the first time since being out of the United States. Lunch was interesting to say the least. We ordered traditional German crepes and cold German beer. We got a few laughs from the locals at the table next to us (at least, I interpreted it as laughing . . . since you know, they could have been talking about why Susan Boyle from Britain's Got Talent got a makeover for all I know. It's not like I could understand them. But since I'm a little paranoid, I tend to believe that they were snickering at us young Americans).

It was a short day trip, but we got to see the highlights. And we did at least make it back to Prague in time to go out and have an dinner at an authentic Czech restaurant. But more on Prague at a later date.

We almost ate at this Italian restaurant on the river - mainly because of the Beer Garden! But we resisted since we had eaten Italian the day before.


This building has always been a cigarette company. But they didn't want it to look like a factory so they disguised it as a mosque. So the pillars are actually smokestakes. It currently belongs to Phillip Morris.


There were some beautiful "homes" (more like castles) on this hillside right on the river. There was green space all around the river, as well as biking and walking trails. It was so beautiful! The yellow house below with the vineyards (on the left) was owned by a gold maker. Yah, this was his summer house. Must be nice. In the second photo, the castle-like home with vineyards (on the left) was owned by the inventor of mouthwash. The other castle looking home has been turned into a hotel.




I forget what this next building is (you better get used to that saying because I'll be writing it a lot - there was so much beautiful architecture in every country and I just snapped away . . . but of course I forgot what most everything was. :-( Sorry!) But, in Dresden they like to call it the lemon juicer. Hehe, it really does look like one doesn't it?!


After googling the phrase "Dem Vaterland Zu Zier Und Ehr" I realize that many people have taken a similar photo as mine and yet no one has explained exactly what this building is. Sheesh!


The next photos are of the church in the middle of the main square. It is right next to the Opera House and the palace. In fact, the Royals had the green bridge built (in a photo below) to connect the palace and the church so that they wouldn't have to walk outside during bad weather. Very smart, these Germans! Notice the different colors of the stone that makes up the church. The story behind the different stones is that the church was practically destroyed during WWII. But they had the skematics of the church, so the engineers disected the rubble of the church, and logged each piece manually. They then identified the missing pieces of the church and had those remade. So the dark, black stone is the original stone from the church that was inventoried. And the lighter stones are the remade pieces. Interesting, huh?!






And here is the palace . . .










This mural tells the story of the monarchy and the details depicted in the mural also comment on the history of the country for its leaders' style, religion, etc. For example, in the second photo, you can see that the first hoof of the horse is stepping on a rose. The rose was the symbol of freedom of religion essentially from the previous monarchy - that king allowed the people to practice any religion that they wanted. When the son came to power he banned all other religions except Catholicism - hence why his horse is stepping on the rose. But if you look very closely, you can see another rose directly behind the horse's back hoof. This rose symbolizes the king that came next that once again allowed the people to practice whatever religion that they wanted.




The statute in the square. I can't for the life of me remember who it is of though. There were way too many statutes of men on horses on our trip!


The Opera House. It was undergoing some reconstruction, which is why you can see scaffolding in the picture. I actually didn't take many photos of the Opera House because there was just so much scaffolding everywhere that it really wasn't as beautiful as it normally would have been.


This was like a huge courtyard inside the palace. Originally the entire city was walled in to protect the citizens. I believe this is part of the city walls.






This is still all the courtyard in the palace. But if you look at the photos in order, they show how the wall connects around. Think of it as a fake panoramic!






It was a great trip! I'll try to get the rest of the photos together as soon as possible!!!