Joe's visit: Dresden

While Joe was here we decided, on the spur of the moment, to go with him for a few days to visit Dresden. And I am so glad we did. I don't know what I was expecting but I was pleasantly surprised by the city. There is a Altstadt (old town) with many beautiful buildings (photo above of Joe and Eric at the Frauenkirche), most of which are reconstructions of the originals that were bombed during the war. In its day it was the "Florence of the Elbe" and despite its sad history, it now has, I think, the feel of a thriving, up-and-coming city.

On the day we arrived we were lucky enough to get tickets for the opera that night, Rigoletto, which Joe kindly gave to me as my birthday present. Dresden's Semper Oper has to be on of the most magnificent buildings I've ever been in. We were up in the nosebleeds but were able to sit on the steps which was fine. The opera itself was fantastic - the stage design and the costumes were just wonderful. It was also a very creative production - there was one woman topless at one stage (we were up so high that I wasn't too sure if I was seeing right but Eric and Joe were happy to confirm, during the break, that it wasn't just a mammary illusion) and they all danced wildly with much headbanging to a crescendo in a particular aria, but somehow they pulled it off.

Dresden also has some cool bars and restaurants. Above is a photo of Joe enjoying a schwarzbier in this quirky vegetarian restaurant that, from the inside, reminded me of a hobbit house. It also served lots of meat dishes for some strange reason. Maybe vegetarian means something else in German, I don't know. It could also be an Eric or Ben version of vegetarian.

We also found a great bar in the Neustadt area of Dresden which was where we were staying. To Joe's delight they brewed their own beer as well as serving up good German food. It had a nice mixture of tourists, trendies and oul' wans as they say in Ireland. They also had a pool table which kept me occupied for most of the night. How I love pool!

As we were only there for two days we couldn't get to see everything, but a must-see, just for the building alone was the Gemäldegalerie beside the Semper Oper.

This photo was taken in the grounds of the gallery. I think you can tell from the look on Joe's face how lovely the buildings are. I also just think it's a nice photo of Joe. So, it may have taken Joe's visit here to give us the push that we needed to go venture outside of Berlin but we are definitely going to make sure that our trip to Dresden wasn't our last. Who knew that Germany had so much to offer! (Probably lots of people of course, but it is certainly a pleasant surprise for us). Next Eckharts up - Mary and Brian!