Crazy old bridge at Kurot-Rathen
Ferry across the Elbe - it is anchored by the cable upstream and just uses the rudder against the current to go from bank to bank.
The National Park
Steep rocky gorge less trodden but amazing
The steep stairs turned into steep rocky incline - a great wander.
Third and final gate into the castle
Castle walls rising up from the already high cliff
They had a war museum at the top with this sucker a 1.3 tonne bomb!
Palace gardens in Dresden
All Baroque style
Ohhhh...
This is a tobacco factory built to look like a mosque?!
Dresden at night.So we left the craziness of big city Berlin and headed into rural Germany to stay in a little village called Dresden (they called it little but it had 600,000 people), which just turned out to be the cutest little village ever!! This was also the first time that we had to stay in a hostel after three months of travel! Our first Europe hostel experience turned out to be great except for the first night we had to sleep in different rooms before there was room enough for us in a 10 bed mixed dorm. The hostel had travellers from all over the world and we enjoyed having a drink with friendly Americans and a Kiwi guy from Christchurch.
Dresden is infamous for being firebombed by the Allies at the end of WWII. It was a very controversial attack as they totally bombed out the centre of town and missed all of the military buildings on the outskirts, they dropped 1500 tonnes of bombs and killed close to 30,000 in one night of bombing. All the old buildings you see in the photos are as they were before the bombing but have been re built since, on some of the buildings you can see darker stones and these were original ones but most buildings pretty much were built again from the ground and many are still being fixed.
Being a small town we were able to walk everywhere we wanted to go which was great because although public transport is good over here it is still expensive. We spent the first two days wandering around looking at the architecture which we found out is best viewed at night when it is cooler, there are fewer people and the lighting makes them even more impressive. At night (early night from dusk + a few hours) everyone is out and walking around with ice creams or sitting in a park with a beer relaxing, it’s a nice atmosphere.
We also checked out what was called the Princes Armoury Collection which is a bunch of royal weapons from the last 500 years. They were amazingly ornate intricate works of art, swords, axes, guns and armour for knights and horses studded with precious stones and inlaid with intricate ivory carvings. The amount of wealth that went into them was a little bit disturbing when you know the peasants who paid for it all would have been hungry and poor.
The last day we went 40kms out of town on a train at Julie’s mum’s recommendation to a fortress called Konigstien Castle. We arrived in a sleepy wee village and went to the information centre to find out where the castle was and how to get there, there was no English and no map or anything so we left and decided to walk around the town and see if that gave us any luck. Finally we looked up above the village and saw that the castle was actually towering over us, we didn’t need a map duh, and lucky we didn’t ask anyone where this stupid castle was!!! Konigstien is a huge castle fortress with the high walls built from the sheer cliffs that surround it. We hiked up the steep hill and once up the top discovered we had to pay to get in to see it all. But it was well worth the 6 euros to get in as the panoramic view from the top of the walls was amazing, it was high enough to keep Sharon 1m away from the wall whenever she could.
Leaving the castle we took a ferry across the river Elbe a few kilometres down stream to walk around some amazing cliffs near a wee village called Kurot-Rathen. From the village we walked into the National Park which has amazing rock pillar formations. However we arrived at 4pm and the last ferry was at 6pm and the shortest track to where we wanted to go was 2 ½ hours long. This part of Germany seemed to be reserved for mainly Germans as we could not find a scrap of English anywhere not even at the information centre. So without really knowing where we were going and having not quite enough time I decided to run ahead and scout the best route for us to take, I found some steep stairs that headed straight up the hill and ran up (the very steep stairs) to see where they went, it looked like a good way so I decided to run back to get Sharon who had been walking as fast as she could to semi keep up with me. When I got to the bottom I headed back the way I had come but Sharon was not there, so I had to run back the other way for a good while till I finally found her by which time I was very sweaty and hot. Once finding her I took her back and once again headed up the steep track that went straight to the top.
The track which was not often trodden had ripe blue berries to eat along the way (mmm! Just like your ones in Norway Catherine & Frode) and took us climbing through a very steep rocky and beautiful gorge and put us up the top much faster than any other way would have. At the top we still had no idea where to go to find what we were looking for so headed off down another trail, we finally found a map that helped us little so we carried on an soon after found a Hotel… Yeah turns out we weren’t that far out after all. Anyway near this hotel was a stone arched bridge that was built up high amongst the natural rock pillars, it’s kinda hard to describe but it is old and looks really cool in an impressive area, just look at the photos! :-p
In a nutshell we loved Dresden and its surrounds. It is a really picturesque town/city with friendly people and a really relaxed feel about it and we would have liked a few more days there to check out more of the surrounding area…. Next time!
Dresden is infamous for being firebombed by the Allies at the end of WWII. It was a very controversial attack as they totally bombed out the centre of town and missed all of the military buildings on the outskirts, they dropped 1500 tonnes of bombs and killed close to 30,000 in one night of bombing. All the old buildings you see in the photos are as they were before the bombing but have been re built since, on some of the buildings you can see darker stones and these were original ones but most buildings pretty much were built again from the ground and many are still being fixed.
Being a small town we were able to walk everywhere we wanted to go which was great because although public transport is good over here it is still expensive. We spent the first two days wandering around looking at the architecture which we found out is best viewed at night when it is cooler, there are fewer people and the lighting makes them even more impressive. At night (early night from dusk + a few hours) everyone is out and walking around with ice creams or sitting in a park with a beer relaxing, it’s a nice atmosphere.
We also checked out what was called the Princes Armoury Collection which is a bunch of royal weapons from the last 500 years. They were amazingly ornate intricate works of art, swords, axes, guns and armour for knights and horses studded with precious stones and inlaid with intricate ivory carvings. The amount of wealth that went into them was a little bit disturbing when you know the peasants who paid for it all would have been hungry and poor.
The last day we went 40kms out of town on a train at Julie’s mum’s recommendation to a fortress called Konigstien Castle. We arrived in a sleepy wee village and went to the information centre to find out where the castle was and how to get there, there was no English and no map or anything so we left and decided to walk around the town and see if that gave us any luck. Finally we looked up above the village and saw that the castle was actually towering over us, we didn’t need a map duh, and lucky we didn’t ask anyone where this stupid castle was!!! Konigstien is a huge castle fortress with the high walls built from the sheer cliffs that surround it. We hiked up the steep hill and once up the top discovered we had to pay to get in to see it all. But it was well worth the 6 euros to get in as the panoramic view from the top of the walls was amazing, it was high enough to keep Sharon 1m away from the wall whenever she could.
Leaving the castle we took a ferry across the river Elbe a few kilometres down stream to walk around some amazing cliffs near a wee village called Kurot-Rathen. From the village we walked into the National Park which has amazing rock pillar formations. However we arrived at 4pm and the last ferry was at 6pm and the shortest track to where we wanted to go was 2 ½ hours long. This part of Germany seemed to be reserved for mainly Germans as we could not find a scrap of English anywhere not even at the information centre. So without really knowing where we were going and having not quite enough time I decided to run ahead and scout the best route for us to take, I found some steep stairs that headed straight up the hill and ran up (the very steep stairs) to see where they went, it looked like a good way so I decided to run back to get Sharon who had been walking as fast as she could to semi keep up with me. When I got to the bottom I headed back the way I had come but Sharon was not there, so I had to run back the other way for a good while till I finally found her by which time I was very sweaty and hot. Once finding her I took her back and once again headed up the steep track that went straight to the top.
The track which was not often trodden had ripe blue berries to eat along the way (mmm! Just like your ones in Norway Catherine & Frode) and took us climbing through a very steep rocky and beautiful gorge and put us up the top much faster than any other way would have. At the top we still had no idea where to go to find what we were looking for so headed off down another trail, we finally found a map that helped us little so we carried on an soon after found a Hotel… Yeah turns out we weren’t that far out after all. Anyway near this hotel was a stone arched bridge that was built up high amongst the natural rock pillars, it’s kinda hard to describe but it is old and looks really cool in an impressive area, just look at the photos! :-p
In a nutshell we loved Dresden and its surrounds. It is a really picturesque town/city with friendly people and a really relaxed feel about it and we would have liked a few more days there to check out more of the surrounding area…. Next time!
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