Dresden is elegant, distinctly un touristy and the perfect antidote to Prague.
It was however, just as hot, if not hotter, well into the 30s which makes being an efficient tourist impossible. Which is why I spent most of the day asleep, under a tree in the huge (as the name suggests) Grosser Garten park. The bottom picture shows the view I had. The park had a little toy stream train that rattled past every half an hour as a well as a huge outdoor concert arena, so I was also treated to the sound of a euro rock band doing their sound check.
I was staying in the Neustadt district. Lots of bars, secondhand shops and the Alaunplatz park. The Hauptstraßen shopping promanade in the main picture below is apparently an example of socialist housing politics and modern architecture. I always seem to stumble across interesting fountains in Eastern Europe too. The Goldener Reiter is Augustus the Strong who was responsible for several of the city's famous baroque buildings and also gives his name to the bridge to Altstadt.
The Baroque Promanade in Altstadt
1. Royal Palace served as the seat of government for the Saxon Rulers of the Wettin family
2. Buildings in the Neumarkt
3. Frauenkirche - one of Dresden's most famous cathedrals, now undergoing a reconstruction project to repair the damage done by Allied bombings.
4. Transport museum
The Catholic Hofkirche (Church of the Court) was built by Saxon ruler Augustus III
The Fürstenzug, Procession of Princes. The worlds largest mosaic made up of 23000 tiles and is 394-foot long. It illustrates a parade of Saxony rulers, some walking, others on horseback. And it survived the bombing.
The Augustusbrucke and Frederick Augustus I of Saxony
Views of the river Elbe
Deutsches Hygiene-Museum
There really is a museum for everything
Trams
I loved the little boy and little girl, walk and don't walk signs at the traffic lights.
Finally at about 8pm the weather broke and we had a massive thunder storm. Que dancing it the streets in the rain.
It was a lovely but strange hostel. I met some great people here. The wall of the bedroom was plastered with photos and each bed had a cuddly toy attached.
