Dresden

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After a great day in Berlin, we arrived back at our AirBnB to find out that our internet had quit on us.  We tried resetting the router and doing all sorts of things to get it to work with no avail.  I think it was just a fluke and hopefully a quick call to Berlin Comcast will fix it (glad I'm not the one who has to make that phone call).  That was the motivation we needed to get on the road early the next morning and make our way to Dresden.

Before we left, though, we headed to a cute cafe around the corner from our AirBnB and grabbed breakfast and checked the interwebs.

My delicious breakfast

We were on the road around 10:00 and made it to Dresden without many issues. We checked into our hotel, but couldn't get into our room (when we eventually did, we were shocked at how big and nice it was.  Shout out to the Wyndam!).  There is another Olmsted Scholar who is going to school in Dresden, so we met up with her for lunch and an afternoon tour of the town.

Claire showed us around the town and explained a lot of the history behind the different buildings. The most impressive thing about Dresden is that the entire city basically melted in World War Two thanks to a bomb.  The Elbe was boiling because it was so hot! Isn't that crazy?  

Since the entire city basically melted, most of the buildings have been reconstructed, including this magnificent opera house and the churches.  Despite the fact that they aren't original, they're still pretty spectacular.  The entire city of  Dresden is just beautiful.  It's different from Bavaria, but has it's own charm for sure.

There is a huge square in the middle of town and this man apparently brings out his grand piano and plays all the time.  He was really good!

In one corner of the town is the Protestant Church

And in the other was the Catholic Church.

There is also a palace there that is pretty popular.  We didn't go inside the palace because they're museums that you have to pay for, but the outside and the courtyard were free so we walked through.

After the palace, we headed over to this little market/carnival which was super cute.  Claire bought some honey to send to another Olmsted-er and we were on our way.  We would have stayed for a beer and a ride on the ferris wheel, but we wanted to check out this park.  We also wanted to be true Germans and enjoy their open container laws, so we stopped at a gas station across the street from the park and grabbed some adult (well at 16 in Germany) beverages.   

The weather was perfect.  It was 80 degrees and sunny.  I could have sat in this park all evening, minus the fact that we were getting hungry.  We ended the night at a burger joint which was delicious.  If you've ever been to 80/20 in Norfolk, it was kind of like that.  Not quite as good, but close.

Claire had to go home to get ready for a meeting she had the next day, but she showed us where a cool little bar was.  It was set up like a living room, so there were lots of couches and lamps everywhere.  By this point, we were pretty tired and were wet since it had begun to rain, so we headed back to our hotel.

Both of us enjoyed Dresden.  It was smaller and not as urban as Berlin, which we both really liked.  It still felt like a small town, but had a lot to do and see.  I would definitely recommend a day here if you're in Germany!

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