Showing Dresden Off to Others, Part II

There was apparently a Part I of this. There was also a report on a trip to the same general location three years earlier. But I digress.

Day 5 – Meißen

I hadn’t been back to Meißen since ’93, so that’s something. It’s a cool, old-looking city. We toured the Dom and went to the porcelain factory store (because the tour gets poor reviews). Walked around. Saw old buildings. Went to a bakery, although I wasn’t sure if that was meant as lunch or a light snack. I got kicked out of the factory store because I was wearing a backpack even though everyone else in the store was also wearing a backpack and was not getting kicked out. I dunno. Left me a little Meißen-negative.

I’d say Rothenburg did it better, but Rothenburg is kind of fake while I think Meißen is mostly original. Quedlinburg does it better. Next time I’m over there I should probably head back to the East Harz and re-verify. There are probably some good hikes around that area also.

I misstated myself: this was the first time back in Meißen since ’02 when I visited with the Nooduitgang, none of whom follow my blog.

The train rides to Meißen and back were fine.

Day 6 – Blasewitz

Somehow it felt like we’d been doing a lot of things, so we kind of took a day off to do less things. The major highlight, though, was taking the Straßenbahn out to Blasewitz first for lunch at a legit German restaurant, then to take a look at the Blaues Wunder bridge, which is I think mostly noted for not having been blown up in World War II like all the other bridges were.

Blasewitz is a neighborhood of Dresden that’s reasonably central — I think there’s maybe one other neighborhood between it and the central Altstadt (possibly two). But yet the photo above is the view down-river heading toward the Altstadt. Point being: even inside city limits, Dresden can look pretty pastoral.

Blasewitz is also one of the wealthier parts of town. A lot of villas and large homes there. It was my second choice for neighborhoods to stay in.

I guess I’ll mention our accommodations now. I found a place off AirBnB that was, like, the only two-bedroom, one-point-five bath vacation rental available in all of Dresden. It was well located in Innere Neustadt. OTOH it was a super hot week for May in Dresden, the place had no AC, and there was no way to get a cross-breeze going with the way the apartment was laid out. Therefore: it was hot and hard to sleep every night. Should have gone to Blasewitz, enjoyed the fresh breezes off the river.

Is that a thing? One day I’ll live closer to a river. I live a block and a half away from a river right now, but I can do better.

Day 7 – Kurort Oybin

Having Garry and Judie along for this trip was great in most possible ways. Made the vacation a lot more enjoyable, not least due to being able to see this place through someone else’s eyes. Having Garry there in particular, who always only ever has visited the Romantic Road parts of Germany when in-country, made me realize that if there is such a thing as homogeneous Germany, then the southeast corner of Saxony isn’t part of it. Or also, having on my previous trip to the country visited Bad Urach for Thomas and Kristine’s wedding — Dresden and its surrounding areas feel nothing like that place.

It’s interesting to me how countries in Europe, despite language barriers, still seem to blend into one another. In this corner of Saxony, it’s easy to feel the pull of Poland and Czech. Things are a little slower, less sophisticated, less developed, and less modern. It’s like this: when I think of going to Germany, I’m always thinking of Germany as Dresden. The reality, though, is that Dresden isn’t, I don’t think, all that German. Western Germany seems kind of homogenized — a lot of it looks and feels like the States. Dresden (and for that matter most of the east) never feels like it’s part of that homogeny. It’s like you’re visiting a whole other non-US country.

At any rate, those were things that really hit me on the day we drove out to Oybin.

For one, it’s hard to imagine that somewhere in the Schwarzwald there’s a drive-through ski jump in some stage of decay from which you can look out over the valley to the hill where the ruined cloister is.

Also, some of the elements of vor-der-Wende East Germany aren’t all that far away.

And then Oybin has this whole ruined cloister (abbey?) that, while not unvisited, isn’t overrun by tourists like it would be if it were a mere hour out of Mannheim.

And then we drove back to our Neustadt hot-box.

Day 8 – Moritzburg

This was actually Sunday. My brother and I drove out to Mittweida for church, where we were informed that it was stake conference and that, for some reason, everyone was meeting in Chemnitz. So we then drove out to Chemnitz only to find out that by “stake conference” they meant “regional conference broadcast from Salt Lake”, at which point we kind of noped out. But hey, at least I got to drive around a lot in the rental Skoda!

Then we went back to Dresden, probably ate or something, then headed out to Schloß Moritzburg to interact with more locals doing what locals do on a weekend.

Day 9: Glashütte and Seiffen

Next day we ended up going to the Erzgebirge, specifically Glashütte and Seiffen. Glashütte is the city where the finest German-made watches are made (if you know your watch brands — well, A. Länge & Söhne and Glashütte Original are hand-made here). Seiffen is where wooden Christmas ornaments come from. So — yeah.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of watch-making to be seen in Glashütte, at least not outside the pleasant museum at the center of town. OTOH, there’s a cool little church there that was fun to sit in and try to figure out what all the artwork was symbolizing.

Of all the churches we saw on this trip, this was the one that I could most easily imagine attending. FWIW. Probably because of all the dark colors.

And then Seiffen was Seiffen. I bought a couple ornaments, because what else was I gonna do? Garry and Judie bought something bigger, the identity of which has been lost to the ether forever. Or I guess I could ask them what it was.

Day 10: Festung Königstein and Dresden Abfahrt

Somehow this was only an eight-day visit, yet it has 10 days in it. Lost to the ether.

Festung Königstein is a fortress complex up in the Sächsische Schweiz. My co-travelers needed to end the day in Berlin and I in Kassel en route to the airport the following day or something.

Hadn’t been to Königstein since ’93 though. Forgot what a good little Ausflug it was. Took the S-Bahn out to Königstein town, then hiked up the hill so we could feel superior to those idiots who just drove to the top like, you know, idiots.

The fortress was used for a lot of different things over time and tells a pretty clear story of Saxony and its fall at the hands of first the Prussians then later Napolean. One of the things it was used for, though, was as a POW camp during WWI.

The one prisoner really likes his cat. He also kind of looks like my nephew-in-law.

And then, just as evidence I was there:

For tourist site qua tourist site, this one was probably my favorite of the trip. Wish we’d gone there with more time on our hands and without concerns about returning a rental car and catching trains. I’d sort of hoped to hit this up as part of a bike ride down the Elbe, but that didn’t materialize this time around. Maybe next year.

And then we went back to the apartment, packed up, then took the rental car back. Before taking the rental car back, though, my brother asked if I knew how to get to where we were going. I answered that I could walk there pretty easily, but that I was pretty sure that driving there would require us to make at least five concentric circles. I was pretty close to right-on with that estimate.

Finally, my thanks to all of you who think of Dresden as, at best, a place to stop over for a night between Berlin and Prague. You’re so right. So, so right.

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Showing Dresden Off to Others – Part I

Eight days there, but 10 would have been more reasonable than six.

I really think that, of all people, I’d be the one who would be willing to say that the place I went on my mission was terrible, ugly, and not worth visiting if, in fact, it was terrible, ugly, and not worth visiting. Ergo, I feel somewhat secure that it’s not just confirmation bias when I assert that Dresden is one of the coolest city’s that exists. I am so glad that, as yet, still next to no one who lives more than 100 miles away from it has any awareness of this. I love that it’s a real city, has interesting history, great architecture, and excellent museums, and also that it so quickly fades into the sort of bucolic, arcadian soft-beauty within 10 minutes of leaving downtown. It’s crazy relaxing for a big(-ish) city in a foreign country.

Sort of talked my brother and his wife into meeting me in Germany so I could take them on one of my OCD-planned tours of the place. I did pretty much nothing that I hadn’t done before, but it is the coolest town for just hanging out and getting the sense of what a lifestyle is like that’s not yours but that you’d probably be pretty okay with.

I dunno. I should one day probably write up a series of pages about what to do in Dresden. Meanwhile, here’s what I/we did, all compacted into one page two pages.

Day 1: Arrived in Dresden

Took the train from Bern with transfers in… a lot of places. I’m pretty sure Basel, probably Mannheim, definitely Frankfurt, and then another in Leipzig. The train station bratwurst in Leipzig was outstanding btw. The total trip took about eight hours. I should have taken pictures of the train stations I hadn’t been to before, but most of the Verbindungen were pretty tight, plus I never think to take photos of the every-day-type stuff that would actually add real richness and reality to my dopey travel blog.

Maybe next trip.

The perimeter of the Neustadt Bahnhof is pretty different than it used to be — it has stores, for instance — but was glad to see this old yellow sign still hanging on. And then the first time this trip crossing the Elbe:

Stayed in a hotel that first night that was located in the same building as that McDonalds that I got kicked out of with Seth and Shane that one time for snapping straws. Hotel was Best Western-branded, but really nice, really central, and for some reason really cheap for that one night. Window looked out on a nice little Hof and the Kreuzkirche.

Day 2: Killing Time until Garry & Judie Arrived

I killed a lot of it just by walking incessantly. I also went and found the Dresden Panometer, which I ended up going back to the next day with Garry and Judie BECAUSE IT WAS SO AMAZING. Well, or because it gives what I thought was a really good introduction to the city.

I hadn’t been to it before. It’s just a 360-degree painting of the city housed within basically a very old, large water cistern. They play around with the lights to pretend that there’s a night and day inside. It sounds hokey, but it was pretty effective. The painting aims to depict Dresden in… some year. Late 18th or early 19th century, pretty sure.

I think there’s a “thunderstorm” that happens also. Seriously, though, it’s all way better than it sounds.

Some time later that day I also took a picture of a Strassenbahn for some reason. Probably an attempt to capture a day-to-day moment and thus enrich my blog.

Probably also to emphasize that I didn’t rent a car there this time, except for three days around the weekend to facilitate getting out to Oybin and going to church on Sunday in Mittweida — poor train connections for both destinations. Just got a Wochenkarte and otherwise took trains everywhere. Was fantastic. And the driving in Europe, once you get off the Autobahn and rural highways, is never great.

Later, I went to the airport and hung out for dang ever as their flight was a little delayed, then they got trapped in the baggage waiting area because the baggage handlers wouldn’t handle baggage during a lightning storm.

Finished off the day by going to dinner with Garry and Judie. There’s a great sense of superiority one feels when one has been in Europe for four days already and meets someone newly arrived who didn’t sleep at all on the plane ride over and, thus, has been up for like 30 hours straight. Eh, Garry follows the blog — I guess I’ll hold off on posting the picture that goes along with that sentiment.

Day 3: The Innenstadt

Well, also the Panometer again, but we can kind of just skip over that the second time around. Although while there I did learn what a flea trap was. Back between the time when they stopped taking baths because they were unhealthy and the time when they started taking baths again because they were healthy, apparently people would walk around with flea traps around their necks. They were small boxes with flea attractants in them that would encourage the fleas to crawl off the person and into the trap. Saw some pretty ornate ones.

I guess when everyone else has fleas it’s not such a big deal when you also have fleas.

Here’s the Frauenkirche (from the inside):

Wir sind zurück!! Anyway, Judie found it too gaudy, but I thought I’d have no problem worshipping in it if it ever came down to it. Also went to the Zwinger and toured the Physics Salon with all the official state time pieces. On our way out of there, I took this photo that I was proud of.

But mostly because of my infatuation with four-cyllinder French hauler vehicles. I’m guessing French — that looks like a Renault, right? I dunno. It could be a Citroën or Fiat or even Skoda.

Day 4: Bastei

Next day, we headed south toward the Sächsische Schweiz near the Czech border. Just took the S-Bahn out of Neustadt, super easy. Got off in… Wehlen? Rathen? Whichever one we got off in, we got back on in the other one. So then took the ferry across the Elbe to the actual town, then commenced hiking what ended up being a pretty easy trail on a very nice.

The photo’s of the river part, heading down to the ferry. It’s not the trail. The trail was more legit than that. Plus, it led us to the Bastei Bridge. It was pretty crowded there and seemingly every German school was on some sort of field trip week that week or something. OTOH, we were the only ones who seemed to have taken the trail there so, again, a great opportunity for feeling superior.

Later, we took the train back to Dresden, but not before my brother got scolded by a guy at a snack bar for not having exact change. Some East German habits die hard.

Anyway, back in Dresden we went out to the Großer Garten. I love that part of Dresden — it’s somewhere where you look around and everyone there is a local just kind of relaxing and hanging out and enjoying some really beautiful surroundings as if that’s something they just do every day.

Not sure I’ve ever been on a trip where I took so many photos of other people taking photos. It was sort of on purpose, but also sort of what was available, and so I just embraced it. Pictured above: tourists.

I guess we’ll let this spill over onto a second page. Here’s hoping it happens within the next six months!

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Wandern im Emmental

I’m six months behind now. Seems right, comfortable.

Back in May, Switzerland, friends Thomas and Kristine, took me walking through the Emmental region. It looked like this.

Like, I realize that when I go there I’m pretty much on vacation (although I presented some research at the University of Bern on this trip — thanks, Jens!), but the most aggravating thing about Europe is thinking how cool it would be to be able to live like that, but realizing that there’s just no way for me to live like that. #ThanksObama.

For this hike, we just took a train somewhere, then walked through a town, then were on the trail system that wandered through this Alpine foothill scenery. Stopped for lunch to eat leftover Flammenkuchen and it just all seemed so reasonable. Ended up in some other town, but instead of having had to have arranged a shuttle or drop cars off somewhere, we just got something to eat at the Gasthof while waiting for the bus that took us to another train station where we caught the train back to Bern.

Or two days earlier, just stopping by the bakery on the way to the train station to pick up sandwiches that were actually pretty good and didn’t come from Smiths or Wal-Mart.

I dunno, maybe it’s good to just be on vacation somewhere you like with people you like being around.

Other fun facts:

• That wire in the last photo is electrified to keep the cows in, but there aren’t any warning signs to keep the people from dying on it, which is probably good for the gene pool.
• Swiss German sounds like they tried to make every German word cute but unintelligible.
• I kept trying to remember what Emmentaler cheese was, but couldn’t ever quite put it together. Turns out it’s just Swiss cheese.
• And the most impressive thing about Switzerland, as always, is just how expensive absolutely everything there is. Although it was somewhat cheaper in those small towns than in the capital.

Was sad to leave, would be great to head back some time when a little more snow is out of the mountains and some of the higher reaches are available. Maybe next year. Probably not though.

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The Stockhorn Is a Peak in Switzerland with Clouds and Closed Trails

This is back in May.

Went on a two-week trip to Switzerland (to see Thomas and Christine) and Germany (forthcoming). The flight to get there was kind of ricidulous, but I should probably let that sink down the memory hole and instead remember the trip up to the Stockhorn.

So this is what I did the first day I was in Switzerland. This wasn’t too far from Bern, where Thomas and Christine live (for now). We took the train out to… some town. Erlenbach apparently. Then headed up to the tram with the idea that we’d head up to the top of the mountain, then hike down probably to the middle station, then tram it back down. But then it turned out that the guy at the station said that all the upper trails were closed for some reason, even though it was difficult, once we were up there, to see what this immediate danger was (avalanches supposedly). Whatever. I didn’t take photos to capture “the experience” per se. My bad. Was living in the moment.

It was pretty and the clouds broke for a bit, which was — different for Switzerland. I dunno. I’ve been there twice in five years and still am not sure where the mountains actually are what with all the clouds.

There are actually two trams, though. One goes to the middle station, then the other goes from the middle station to the peak. Both were crammed full of people in a way that seems like wouldn’t happen in Europe, but apparently totally does, at least at the higher altitudes. The second tram was particularly high off the ground.

During the journey, Thomas and I had compared our experiences of having a kid and dog respectively. In particular, we’d noted that, when you have your kid/dog around, random people constantly come up to you wanting to share their experiences with their own kid/dog. As I always say, having a dog is exactly the same as having a kid and I reject all comments to the contrary. Anyway — we took the top tram back down to the mid-station after enjoying the partially cloudy (but pretty awesome anyway) views and took a hike around that area. We stopped for lunch somewhere, at which point a Swiss woman, whom I’d noted as having a foreign guest with her, came up to Thomas and said, Oh, I have an American with me too!. The two of them seemed to connect on a deep level.

So: Americans are apparently the kid-dogs of Switzerland. I guess we could do worse.

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