Week 78: Dresden and Saxony

We are on a mission to get to 50 Marriott nights this year in order to maintain our status in 2023. A long weekend with no solid plans, meant we sought out the cheapest hotel room in Germany and ended up in Dresden in the East.

We left Thursday afternoon after school and made the five hour drive, which was almost identical to our drive to Berlin two weeks ago, with the exception that we turned off and drove directly East for the last hour.

We saw another shooting star, in the same area as two weeks ago; so weird! This was despite the fact that it was almost a full moon this week. There was a blood moon and solar eclipse two nights ago, which weren’t visible from Central Europe. However, as the moon rose Thursday night, it glowed bright red and looked so close, at some points it looked like we would drive right into it off the autobahn.

Friday, our destination was Saxony Switzerland National Park. As we were nowhere near Switzerland, I’m not sure why the park name mentions it, but I guess is a reference to the mountains in the park.

Our main destination within the park, was the Bastei Bridge area. I set my GPS to the park and we took a very scenic drive along the Elbe River, through adorable riverside towns to the park. We drove into it and promptly lost service, but continued to drive until we decided to stop and check a map at one of the parking lots. Turns out there are two, separate parts of the park, and we went to the other one 😂, but I guess now we can cross both parts off our “list.” It was a nice drive and since we didn’t actually have a schedule to follow, no one cared. We did stop and check out one of the waterfalls in this section and kept going.

We finally made it to Bastei Bridge and did the two mile hike to see the bridge and check out the weird rock formations. It kind of reminded me of Monument Valley in Arizona, except instead of a desert, it’s a pine forest.

We have been so lucky with weather this year. It still hasn’t gotten really cold and we haven’t had a lot of rain so the autumn leaves are still hanging on and it’s still a reasonable temperature to spend time outside.

After the park, we had a late, late lunch at a pizza restaurant in Pirna, and then did a quick walk around the city center. We went back to the hotel and took a nap, which ended up going a little too long so we ordered delivery food at the hotel and played card games in the lobby.

Saturday, we checked out Dresden itself. Dresden is currently the capital of the German state of Saxony, but used to the capital of the independent Kingdom of Saxony. The Kings of Saxony made sure the city reflected its Royal status by building up a beautiful city center around the Royal palace, with baroque and rococo architecture. They brought arts and culture to the people by building an opera house, theaters, and universities. Over the years, it became an important arts and culture center, as well as a manufacturing and transport hub in Central Europe.

Unfortunately, like Würzburg, this meant it became a target during World War II. In the final months of the war, the entire city center was completely leveled in a fire storm of bombs by the Allied Forces.

Since the end of the war, Dresden has been painstakingly restored by its residents. After the end of the War, Dresden ended up on the East Germany side of the border and hence, restoration occurred very slowly. Public funds were not used and all work was done on a voluntary basis, for almost 50 years, until the Reunification of German in 1993. Afterwards, Dresden was able to make an international appeal for donations that allowed them to employ paid workers in the restoration, which is now mostly completed.

Frauenkirche, or ‘Church of Our Lady,’ was and is the heart of Dresden. During the war, allied bombers would use the steeple as a guide for their planes. While it was never directly bombed for this reason, it did catch fire during their biggest air raid on February 14, 1945, which destabilized the heavy roof dome. The dome eventually collapsed in on the church, leaving nothing but one small wall section and a mountain of stones.

After the war, the rubble pile was fenced off. Volunteers sifted through rubble for almost 50 years, cataloging each stone by number and storing on outdoor shelves in the market square. In the 1980s, the rubble pile starting to be overgrown with grass and bushes and was almost cleared to create a parking lot, which luckily didn’t happen. After the reunification of Germany, the Dresden Appeal was able to collect enough funds to rebuild the church, using the stones that had been saved by the volunteers.

On our way to the church, we stopped for a coffee just in front of it. The cutest little old man stopped and asked us excitedly if we had been inside yet. We said no, and he replied “oh you MUST go inside! It is so beautiful!” It was so cute, we all imagined he must have spent some time volunteering to catalog stones at some point 🥹.

After the Frauenkirche, we wandered around and saw where they were setting up for the Christmas market, which starts next week. Dresden’s market is supposed the oldest in Germany, and one of the best. Around the corner, we found a mini Christmas market, with Glühwein. Ryan found a stand selling bratwursts and he always impresses me so much with how fearless he is about ordering. Brooklyn and I still get nervous, but when he sees something he wants, nothing gets in his way. He gets himself in line, orders in German, pays, and even handles the condiments without breaking a sweat. I tell him all the time, he is growing in ways he doesn’t even realize.

We walked through the Dresden Zwinger, which is a museum complex with gardens. We only wanted to walk through the gardens, but the entire thing had been dug up for renovations 😂 so it wasn’t much to write home about.

We checked out the outside of the Dresden Opera house and then walked over to the Dresden Royal palace. In the palace, we took a tour of the Green Vault, which are where the Saxon royal family’s treasures are kept. Inside, there were several rooms, each dedicated to a different type of treasure, amber, ivory, gold, gems. It was a little overwhelming seeing it all but also interesting considering the Green Vault was a victim of an international jewel heist two years ago that it is yet unsolved. There are still empty places in the display cases where the stolen items used to be stored. Of course, no pictures were allowed

After the Green Vault, we did some more walking and shopping and then walked along the Dresden Terrace, which is a long promenade along the Elbe River. We stopped for ice cream and then headed back to the hotel.

Overall, Dresden was a nice visit. We really enjoyed the National Park and the city center The history of the city is so interesting, despite its sad past. Traveling during this time of year is difficult though. Daylight Savings Time ended on October 30, and since then the sun has been setting around 4:00pm and moving earlier each day. After that, it’s too dark to do much. At the end of the month, Christmas markets will start so it will give us something to do in the evenings again. But this time, we ended up back at the hotel much earlier than usual. Next year, I think we will take it easier during this time of year and rest up before Christmas.