Dresden (30.8.-2.9.)

30.8.
After spending a quiet morning, including breakfast with a crowd of middle-aged or older German people, I checked out at 11 am and went to the station. The train to Dresden arrived in time, and i was lucky to have the compartment for myself. The distance between Leipzig and Dresden is not long, and so i arrived at my destination already a little bit after 1 pm. The hotel is located extremely close to the airport, but on the quiet side, with all the interesting sights on the other side of the airport.
Dresden is huge, and the buildings there are breathtakingly beautiful, you really think that you are in Florence (Italy). The weather was perfect, sunny and really hot (31 °C), as I like it.
Like in most other touristically interesting places they have a hop on-hop off bus, and I am inclined to try it this time, the price for 48 hours is 22 €, compared to the prices ab about 30 € for half the time in Oslo and Stockholm.
Nevertheless my first tour was on foot, under e mercilessly glowing sun. Impressive and beautiful, no bizarre encounters this time, fine with me. They even have a beer garden with a name which would be, freely translated be "Little Italy", however there was nothing Italian about it, just really cold beer, rather overpriced, but what can you do, if you are thirsty?
I decided to take the streetcar back, the public transport is very well developped and rather cheap, tickets can be bough on board.
Had a nice vegetarian dinner, and another beer.
At the station some Chinese on bikes crossed my way, and when I heard them chattering in clearly understandable Mandarin I was tempted to say hallo in that language, but I decided not to, as I did not want to cause an accident by shocking them with my horrible accent.
Dresden has a lot of Russian tourists, too, but in contrast to those ignorants which you meet in most other places, these appeared to have better manners and being culturally interested, good to experience.
I guess it is a universal constant, that many people, when they come to other countries for a vacation, start to behave like the huns invading Rome.
My hotel is great, a very nice room, spacious. beautifully furnished, and no trouble with the WiFi as in Leipzig, where the interruption of the service happened quite often; good for my nerves^^
31.8.
I bought a ticket for the hop-on-hop-off bus which was quite a complicated procedure, I got a sheet of paper which I had to hand over to one of the employees at one of the stops, and she took it, entered all the data in a small device which produced another long strip of paper which is my ticket. A nice and impressive ride which takes about 2 hours including 22 stops where you can hop off, a tape was running giving details about the area which we were passing, and the bus driver gave additional comments about some of the sights, spiced with personal opinions about life, universe and everything; one bus driver was praising women as the superiour life form, this was caused by passing a monument dedicated to the women who helped to rebuild dresden from the rubble. There had been a bombardment of the city center in February 1945 which left 15 square meters in ruins, with a large number of dead (officially 25000, and in addition thereto many refugess who had been there, but not been officially registered as inhabitants). One of the churches, the Frauenkirche (women´s church) was rebuilt from scratch, which cost 133 million €, most of it coming from donations from all over the world. It must have been a huge effort, but it was really worth it, because you don´t see anything of the destruction that had taken place.
One bus driver eben recommended one of the restaurants which we were passing and assured the passengers, that he is not ralated to the people running it (hard to believe, why would a bus driver have his lunch in a place dedicated to tourists only).
Funny thing, like in Leipzig, very few foreigners, mostly the German-speaking crowd, although I heard some Portuguese when I was walking around.
On my walk i passed a small shop, where a kind gentleman (he called me "young man") sold his drawings picturing some professions, together with small texts describing what this profession was about. As his strong body odour (i.e. sweat) preceded him, I did not stay too long, just enough time to have a look at the chemist and the scientist.
A lot of street musicians, utterly remarkable a couple (mezzo-soprano and tenor) who sang opera and modern songs (time to say goodbye), yes, they were really good, and I guess they are both singing at the opera which is closed during the months July and August.
No Hare Krishna adherents in sight, but there will be still a chance to meez them in Berlin and Cologne, my next stops, I guess.
Yes, they call Dresden the Florence of the North, and a small are might remind of the latter, but, as there is only one Rome, there is also only one Florence, Dresden is an interesting place by itself, and it need not be compared to other places. Again very few headscarf ladies, I saw only a couple of them, I guess this is so, because the Eastern Germans have a reputation not to be very tolerant to people who are from another culture.
I bought me a day pass of the public transport and used ito to get around the city in various street cars; you really need no car in Dresden, the public transport net is excellent and rather cheap.
1.9.
Took the hop-on-hop-off bus again and hpped off at the other side of the river Elbe to have a closer look at the small castles and parks situated in the hills. A great view over Dresden, and rather quiet there, not too many tourists. After walking around I went back to the road, where the bus was going along and walked on to the next stop. It turned out to be a long walk about 2-3 km, but I had time, and the weather was nice. Interestingly none of the bs drivers was of the gabby sort this day, I must have been extremely lucky the day before. I made another stop in a part of Dresden I had not explored yet and took some pictiures.
Erich Lästner, a German author every kid of my generation knew, grew up there, I read some of his books, and watched some movies based on them, one of 1930, another of 1973 and tried to imagine how Dresden must have been when he grew up in the beginning of the 20th century. I cannot imagine the kids of nowadays still read Kästner, the times have so much changed. Maybe one of his books, the "flying classroom" (literally translated, I am nout sure he is known outside Germany) would still be popular among the young crowd.
I had a short conversation with an elderly gentleman, possibly retired, in front of my hotel, who had been here with his wife for one week; they had come by car, more than 300 kilometers, and in spite of the navigation system, they had had trouble to find the hotel, because they arrived at the wrong side of the station. He called me a young man, I really liked that, maybe due to the fact, that he took the elevator, and I the stairs, and we arrived at the same tome at our floor.
2.9. Woke up at 7 am and packed my things, this isreally becoming a routine, and my small suitcase is lighter, as I again leave some of my worn underwear in the trash bin, Jack Recher be praised.
Next stop will be Berlin, in a hotel called Big Mama, and there the saga continues...