Dresden

Likes & Dislikes

Likes

Dresden - Kunsthof, an art center - k.t.-g. photo

1. Cross the Elbe promenade and walk on the Augustus Bridge towards Neustadt, and then look back at the old town

2. The steamboat trip

3. The Old Masters Picture Galerie, specifically the still life paintings of Frans Snyder

4. The interesting, unique German Hygiene Museum

5. Lunch in Louisengarten

6. The panoramic view a from the top of the Frauenkirche

7. DDR Museum (Die Welt der DDR)

8. Dresden offers far more tourist attractions than Leipzig

9. Pfunds Molkerei, the world's most beautiful milk shop

Dislikes

Dresden - DDR-heritage - j.k. photo

1. Dresden was destroyed in World War II, so there are no original monuments, only copies

2. The Pragerstrasse pedestrian street is still quite a DDR feeling

3. Lots of unemployed young people lounging on the streets, lots of drugs

4. Lots of unimaginative graffiti

5. Housing estates built in the sixties and seventies

6. The opera house is nothing special

7. The old town is much smaller than I expected

Opinions

Dresden - Zwinger - a.m. photo

Dresden - j.k. photo

We buy two Day Cards and travel to Pirnaischer Platz, where we visit the Frauenkirche and the Neumarkt with its horse coaches. A kiosk sells funny cartoons/poems on cards, for many professions.
We visit the Festung near the Elbe, with seven bastions named after the planets.
Near the Zwinger Palast, we take a salad lunch: an elder man at a white grand piano plays Yesterday and I did it my way.
Galerie Alte Meister has many Cranach d.Ä., Dürer, Rembrandt, Hals, plaster statues à la Michelangelo and ... Rafaels Maria. We pass the 30 m tiles tableau Fürstenzug: 1000 years of Saxon rulers on horses, many Friedrichs. Tram 9 and our Day Cards bring us to the northwest, and back to the Elbe.
Our first Biergarten is in the south, the second north of the Augustusbrücke where we dine with saljanka, coated potato and smintana. Music: a wind chapel at the Festung (opera); the singing lady (Moscow nights) and two guitar/sax boys (Life of Brian and Hungarian Dance).
Back with tram 9 and bus 62, and the last lassi at our Punjab restaurant. (e. h.)

Practicals