More on Dresden...

Here we are in Dresden along the river Elbe (with the help my trusty tripod).


A quaint street in the city center.


During our walk we turned away from the river to go back into the center and found ourselves staring at this amazing mural. This is Sachsen Palace and this is what I found on the web about the mural.

Called the Procession of Dukes, this mural looks like a pencil drawing, almost in the style of currently -- with its richly detailed figures in black, white, and gray, on a mosaic-like background of gold and gray. The mural was about one hundred yards long or more and some five yards high, depicting every ruler of Saxony from the middle ages to the Prussian expansion, each dressed in period costume.

Back from Dresden...

We got back home late yesterday afternoon after our short trip to Dresden. It was a great trip and I will post more, but now I will just post some pictures about the the Prague train station and the train.


I was very surprised by the main train station (called Hlavni Nadrazi). It has an amazing architecture, although it could use some serious refurbishment. Here is the stained glass window at the front of the station that appears to be in good condition.

We got to the station about 30 minutes early so we had a coffee at a cafe on the second floor under the high domed ceiling. Statues - these in need of the aforementioned reurbishment - ringed the wall of the dome. It was interesting to see how mancy Czechs in the cafe were drinking beer at 8:00 A.M.

The train was on time and not crowded. The trip to Dresden is just over 2 hours. The weather was nice on Saturday, sunny but a bit breezy. Taking a train is much more relaxing than driving.

Taking the train to Dresden...

We leave in the morning on a train to Dresden, Germany. We made a quick trip there shortly after we moved to Prague in order to submit our Czech residency visa applications (for some reason you have to be outside the country to do that), but we were only in Dresden for a couple of hours - have lunch and then go to the Czech consulate for five minutes. So we really didn't see much of the city.

We're only staying one night and returning on Sunday but it's at the Radisson. The Radisson has a pool which is one of the reasons we booked it. Noah loves swimming and it will be a reward for the sight seeing that he gets fed up with fairly quickly. I am looking forward to the train trip as much as I am to sight seeing in the city. Just relax for 2 1/2 hours and watch the scenery go by.

We are going to do some shopping (more diet Sprite or 7-Up, neither of which you can get in the Czech Republic), visit a hands on childrens museum and also the glass VW factory where they make 150 hand-made VW Phaetons a day. Here is a picture.


Dresden is most famous as the city that was firebombed by the Allies during WWII, killing an estimated 24,000 - 40,000 civilians.

Here is Dresden in the aftermath of WWII. Verly little remained intact.

Here is the current rebuilt city of Dresden.

For anyone interested in learning more about the city here is the link to the wikipedia page. Of course, I'll post pictures after we get back.