May 15 - city of Dresden

We had breakfast in the villa's kitchen that morning.... coffee and tea, fresh rolls and jams, sliced cheeses and fruit. My husband has yet to drink a full cup of coffee anywhere... every cup has been much too strong. Quite a difference here from Amsterdam, where all the coffee was so delicious. I don't drink coffee at all, but I've been finding chamomile tea wherever we go.

We love this villa.... the property is very large, very lush. You can't see the neighbors on either side, because their properties are also large and lush (translation: overgrown, but lovely). My husband said that if we could buy a vintage house on a piece of property such as this one, we'd be moving to Germany in a heartbeat. (I wonder how many Euros that would cost? And how many Euros for property taxes?)

We drove into the city of Dresden after breakfast. We saw the King's city residence, as well as all of his treasures in the Historical Green Vault. There are two vaults that you can visit-- the other one is simply the Green Vault. We chose to see the Historical Vault simply because the items had more prominence, value, and provenance. The "lesser" vault has lots of porcelain items, and we felt we had seen more than enough porcelains in Meissen. We walked through the historical rooms filled with ivory, silver, gold, bronze, diamonds and sapphires and emeralds... enough to take your breath away.

The huge cathedral in Dresden (Frauenkirche) was beautiful beyond belief. And to think that this city was bombed during WWII.... and now it's rebuilt and lovely and proud and glorious. The Frauenkirche was beautiful, gorgeous, ornate, over-whelming. Gold and gilt everywhere you looked..... a painted ceiling so high above your head that you got dizzy looking up at it. Side altars as beautiful as the main altar, which was indescribable. We were lucky enough to hear an organist practicing on the cathedral's huge gilded organ, and we sat in the pews and just listened for a while. It was beautiful enough to bring tears to your eyes. (I walked around Germany with tissues constantly in my pocket and in my purse.)

I have not lit a candle in a church for years and years... but I started lighting candles when we were in Leipzig, and I lit candles in Dresden as well. For the rest of our trip, I would be lighting candles in nearly all of the churches. I lit them for friends, for family, for spouses of good friends that have passed away. It just felt like the thing to do there. And whether or not lighting a candle does anything except add a bit of light to a church, it just felt right and good and purposeful. So I kept dropping coins into the money-boxes and lighting candles in all the beautiful churches.

On to the Zwinger Palace.... filled with room-sized paintings, delicate masterpieces, red-carpeted stairways. The palace grounds with their waterfalls and stone walls and sculptures..... your eyes didn't know where to look first. We just stood in the midst of it all before we went inside and looked up and around and back again. My husband got a map of the museum and we walked through every inch of it, with a break inbetween for lunch at their outdoor cafe. (Fresh fish and fruit, served on lovely china, in a sunny outdoor garden cafe.)

After that, another beautiful cathedral by the Elbe in Dresden. Wherever you look... churches, buildings, homes... it's all just so beautiful. With one exception-- apartments that looked like they were built in the 1960s or 1970s-- modern blocks of cement and steel and glass, so unlike the rest of that charming city.

Traffic in Dresden was busier than Leipzig, but maybe that's because we were now driving in it rather than walking around it. We chose to go back to the villa at the end of the day and have our evening meal at the little restaurant by the Elbe, rather than finding a cafe in the city. We enjoyed watching the ferry going back and forth the night before, and it was just more peaceful there than in the city itself. I think we were also overwhelmed by everything we had seen in Dresden, and we needed to get back to the green countryside of the villa.

After dinner that night, there was a steamboat cruise along the Elbe. Dresden had a jazz-fest that weekend, and some of the jazz lovers were enjoying the river cruise while a band was playing American jazz tunes. We sat on the balcony of our room and listened to the music and watched the boat go by, and we felt as if we had suddenly been transported to New Orleans. With the lights on the steamboat, and the music floating up to us from the Elbe, it was a nice way to end the night.