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Dresden, Germany
May 27th, Thursday - Drive to Dresden, by TD
 It was so nice to find the car safely
parked in the lot at Leichtenberg Bahnhof. I don't know why I
had worried for its safety. Could have been the seedy look of the
East Berlin neighborhood! We loaded up the baggage and headed
south toward Dresden. It wasn't difficult to find our way to
the autobahn. There were numerous construction zones to
challenge my driving while passing a tractor trailer. During
one of them we must have missed our turn off for Dresden and
found ourselves 20 km slightly in the wrong direction. A
country road easily brought us back to the correct route.
Dresden is a major metropolitan area in the former East
Germany. It sits on the Elbe River and is the capital of
Saxony. At one time it was the capital city of a German-Polish
state.
 Dresden was also the recipient of a carpet bombing during the
final days of WWII. Just about every building received some
damage that night. The East Germans rebuilt a number of
important structures but most of the buildings and roadway are
1950-60's design. It's not a pretty sight but I am no fan of
that period of design.
 Our Etap Hotel is in a distant suburb of Dresden. It was easy
to find off the highway. After checking in, we drove into the
city. Parking was plentiful but dear. Dresden has more trams
(street cars) than I have ever seen in a city. The Communist
Planners designed for the automobile but very few citizens
were able to own them. Buildings are set back from the roads
and apartment blocks spread apart (and often hideous in
appearance). Even with all the mass transit, nothing is set on
a pedestrian scale. It's so far to walk to anything.
 There is, however, a pedestrian shopping street running from
the Bahnhof (train station) to the historical section on the
river. Ibis Hotels bought three old high rises buildings and
converted them. A number of department stores have also
converted some buildings. After lunch at a food court, we
walked to the Cathedral, around the Zwinger palace, the opera
house and along the Bruhlesche Terrace. Dresden has a
reasonably priced family pass for museums so we opted to see
the museums tomorrow when we had more time.
 A political demonstration tied up the central city traffic. We
got caught in the snarl while trying to get to the north side
of the river to see the "Neustadt". That section of the city
survived the bombing with little damage. Years of neglect
during the Cold War did take it's toll though. We made it back
to the hotel to play cards and have a few beers before driving
south to Freiberg to see another old village.
We found Freiberg closed down and the only restaurant open was
McD's. So we had to drive back toward our village looking for
food. There were none in any of them. No one must go out to
eat here! In Grumbach, we found a roadhouse ready to close but
willing to serve us. The food was delicious.
May 28th, Friday - Touring Dresden, by DW
 The word for the day is "revitalization".
Our dream a coin operated laundry finally came true. The desk
clerk at our hotel, after telling us " there were no coin
operated laundries", looked up laundries in the telephone book
and found the only one in Dresden. It is located in New Town
just across the river from all the museums, the palace and the
Cathedral. We were skeptical on our drive over there and would
not have been surprised if it was closed or nonexistent. But,
we found it OK and it was open.
Once the laundry was loaded and operating, AD and I walked
down the street to a beauty shop hoping for a quick trim. The
guy was booked. We did however, pass a wonderful looking
bakery. So we went in and got 2 crullers, a cherry strudel,
and apple strudel and a nut crunch. Yummy!! When we returned
it was my turn to watch the laundry spin while TD and AD went
looking for a restroom. Always a pain in the !!!. We left the
laundry elated, knowing that doing the clothes by hand was not
on tonight's agenda.
 Our first stop in Old Town was the Palace. It is divided into
sections that are now museums instead of royal apartments.
There were magnificent displays of paintings in the Zwinger
including a famous Raphael Angels with the Madonna and
Child. We had fun standing by this painting making up
stories about what the cherubs were thinking. They also have a
very nice porcelain museum
 and an armor museum, which we
skipped. The Stallhof & Museum has some nice paintings but it
was the stairway leading to the tower with its grand views of
the city below that really caught our attention. The last
museum, The Albertinum, housed some modern drawings that were
absolutely hideous and not worth the time to walk quickly
past.
 Since three museums in one day is AD's limit, we walked over
to the Karlstadt, which is a huge department store that has a
market in the basement. TD stayed with the car as the meter
was nearly out and then drove over to pick us up. Yesterday he
had bought the most delicious cheese rolls at Karlstadt and we
were ready for an afternoon snack. As luck would have it when
we got there I realized that my money was in the car with the
camera case and AD had only enough cash to buy the newest
version of Powerade. Powerade Gold, tastes like grapefruit and
I wish it was low cal, since AD bought 2 and didn't like it!
We did get our rolls after TD picked us up and brought the
cash. It was my turn to wait in the car.
Returning to the hotel, TD popped open the Merlot and we
played Rummy while drinking wine from Chile. Then we headed to
the same restaurant at which we had a wonderful meal last
night and again left happy and full to the gills, ready for
bed.
Touring Prague, Czech
Republic...»
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