Weimar – Dresden
We left Weimar early in the morning to make it to Dresden by lunchtime.
Dresden was a beautiful city before the second world war. One of the most
prominent rulers of this area was Augustine the Great. Dresden was bombed in
1945 by Allied troups and according to our guide this was the largest loss of
civilian life in the area. It is one thing to bomb military installations but
Dresden was not involved in the war. There was massive destruction and the city
is only just being rebuilt in the last 20 or so years.
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| The Opera House |
It is a beautiful city that is often called ‘Florence of the Elbe’. Walking
around, you would think that it’s quite old. The restoration process is trying
to recreate the Dresden of old before the war. A lot of the buildings look
quite black and this is mostly because the sandstone they are made of absorbs
pollution.
In our walking tour, we looked at the buildings that were being restored.
The first one was the opera house. Across the square from that was the old
theatre that was actually turned into a Catholic church. Apparently Augustine(1553-1586)
had ambitions of ruling Poland so arranged to marry the princess of Poland to
eventually inherit the throne. However, being Protestant (as Germany was
Lutheran) was a problem. So he turned the theatre into a Catholic church and
“converted” to Catholicism. The church adjoins the main palace because the
theatre once did.
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| The church/theatre on the left adjoins the Palace (the one with the tower). |
Also adjoining the palace on the other side is another yellow palace
building which Augustine built for his mistress. It adjoins the palace for his
convenience and I suppose it was then just common knowledge. On the other side
of town is another palace he built for another mistress…
After looking at the palace, we walked into a magnificent square. It was
meant to be a garden but due to the weather, the greenest part is the nicely
manicured grass. In summer there are some orange and lemon trees as well. The
square is surrounded by buildings with lots of glass panes. These house the
citrus trees in the colder months.
Another of the big sights to see in Dresden is the main church
(Frauenkirche – Church of Our Lady). It was reconstructed from parts of the
rubble of the old church and you can see some black stones interspersed with
the newer sandstone slabs as they tried to place the original stones in their
original position. Outside the church is a statue of Martin Luther. These days
though, the church is an ecumenical church as many different religious groups (Catholic,
Lutheran, Muslim) contributed money to the rebuilding.
We had a few hours of free time to explore so Cat and I went nuts and
rushed around. The first sight we went to see was the remains of a fortress in
Dresden. It was built near the water and over time it sank into the ground.
Then we went to the Grand Palace to see the Historisches Grunes Gewolbe.
This ‘green room’ contains an exhibition of jewelry and goldsmith art. The
elaborate rooms are filled with precious objects, statues and jewelry made of amber,
ivory and other precious stones.
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| the Frauenkirche church in the background |
Lastly, we visited the dome of the Frauenkirche church. The church is 91m
(300ft) high. You can actually climb almost to the top to have a great view
over the city. We definitely had our exercise climbing the ramps and stairs to
the top but it was a nice view. It was a pity that the lookout closed just a little
before sunset as I was looking forward to taking some sunset pictures.
After a quick dinner, we were knackered and so returned to the hotel to try
to recuperate for the next day…
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| View from the top of the dome over the river. |
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| The Fraukenkirche church in the background. This was a very pretty square. |
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