The Dresden Escape

I interrupt the India travelogue, which I regret is taking way too long to write, to post February's adventure of the month, lest anyone think I have spent the last two months doing nothing but dreaming of India.  Well, there has been some of the that, but there has also been some of this....

The scenario: Stuck in Halle, Germany, a town seriously challenging my belief that it is impossible to get bored in Europe with no work on the horizon for the next 24 hours and limited access to the internet. My only foreseeable options were to find a way out of Halle (pronounced “Hell”…I am certain of it) and save my sanity or to stay and perhaps take up knitting. Considering I hear carrying knitting needles through airport security is a bit of a bitch, I opted for a rental car.

Joined by two fellow Halle-haters and armed with the best map Mapquest had to offer and what can most generously be described as a vague plan, we set off on a ninety mile road trip to Dresden. There was some concern about the wisdom of our outing thanks to some pretty dire weather predictions. But then there was also the knowledge that it was this or nothing at all, so we pushed those concerns aside and proceeded with our plan. Everything that happened from our arrival onward validated the fact that we made the right call.

We had nothing more than the most general of directions into the city and one German speaker amongst us, but we managed to stumble into the one parking garage directly across from the Tourist Information Office. There, we found no lines, only a helpful Info guy, who suggested we join the hop on- hop off bus leaving in a few minutes. The entire route would take an hour and a half and bring us back to the historical center just in time for 3 half-hour walking tours, all included in the 20 euro price. We had not been in town for more than 20 minutes and already we were booked up for the next three hours.

The double-decker bus, with its recorded multi-lingual narration, took us from the baroque postcard-pretty old town, almost all of which has been completely rebuilt since the ruthless Allied fire-bombing in 1945, across the Elbe River and up into the hills past castles, vineyards and more charming neighborhoods than I could have possibly imagined. We passed museums, palaces, frozen over bier gardens and some pretty interesting street art as I eyed a couple of hostels and plotted my return. Yes, I had already decided I would return. The weather I had been dreading was turning out to be nothing more than gray skies and a mild drizzle. And best of all, we were not in Halle anymore.

The first of our walking tours took us through the Zwinger, the exquisite baroque courtyard that began life as Augustus the Strong’s orangerie, occupying the space between the old city fortification walls. It was the first of Dresden’s many landmarks to be rebuilt after the war and is now the repository for the fine arts museum, the armory, the porcelain collection and the mathematical salon (none of which we had time to visit this time around).

Next, we toured the Furstenzug, the Square abutting the Zwinger and home to the magnificent Semper Opera house. Just off on a side street was my favorite part of the entire tour, the Procession of Princes. From a distance, it looks like a block-long mosaic depicting the 99 rulers of Saxony, but upon closer inspection, it reveals itself to be a collection of 20,000+ painted tiles, making it the longest and largest tile painting in the world. Walking along the length of the beautifully rendered gallery, our guide provided us with a crash course into the people and politics that shaped the region into what it is today. Never has a history lesson been so pretty.

Finally, we learned about the Frauenkirche, the Protestant church with the distinctive stone cupola that was left to stand in ruins as a reminder of the destructiveness of war until recently when it was rebuilt, using some of the original stones pieced together in a jigsaw-puzzle fashion via the use of old photographs. The dark sooty original stones are easily distinguishable from the light colored new ones.

By the time we reached the end of the tour, the weather had begun to deteriorate (just as the guide had predicted it would) so we took this as a sign to retreat to one of the areas’ many picturesque cafes for some soup and gluhwein. For anyone that has not had the pleasure, gluhwein is a hot spiced wine or as I prefer to call it, the best thing ever invented. Ever.

Sufficiently warmed up, we jumped (or I guess “hopped” would be more appropriate) back on the bus and headed to the nightlife district behind the art nouveau Pfund’s Dairy. There we found so many little funky restaurants, bars and shops that I would have been happy to have all my belongings shipped over and establish residence anywhere in the area. That not being a practical option, instead, we found a bar with a Big Lebowski theme (seriously, how cool is that?!) and hung out with a friendly Dresdenian and her dog until it was time for our inevitable return to the convalescent home that is Halle.

It was now a proven fact, a rainy day in Dresden beats the sunniest of days in Halle. Obviously, I was delighted with how our day turned out for many reasons, not the least of which is I am pretty sure I would suck at knitting