Spent a bit of time on the puta before hopping on a tram and then a train to the Hauptbahnhof for our train to Dresden.
This sign on train windows amused me. It's like "here's a spot you can
throw bottles out". Germans of course have simply a circle to mean
"banned" as opposed to a circle with a cross through it
Backwards. Yet again! Lol
Fields of canola south of Berlin
We had first class seats but we were in a six-seat compartment which wasn't particularly pleasant - very cramped and someone was coughing up phlegm the whole trip. Yay.
Anyways. Arrived in Dresden and went and checked into our hotel - a very short walk from the station in the middle of a pedestrian mall/plaza type thing. Went back to the station to get our tickets for tomorrow's trip to Prague. Thought we'd gotten two window seats, but presumably they didn't exist because we seem to have two middles :( (we didn't notice this til some time later :( )
Fountain in Dresden (near our hotel - background)
Then we hopped on the train out to Meißen. I'd gotten info about vaguely where to go to see the porcelain museum, but the instructions weren't particularly clear for after you left the station. So we started wandering and saw a sign pointing to porcelain manufakture, so followed that. There were a few signs, but they weren't very obvious. In fact the museum itself wasn't very well marked either. After going "is this it?" a few times we eventually came to the cafe, but nothing really obvious to say that was the museum as well. Fail. Maybe they only bother to cater to tour groups or something that know where they're going (there were a couple of coaches parked out the back). Anyways. So we went in (had to check my bag, but photos are allowed so that was good), and went on the workshop demonstration. They gave us these headsets that received the talks in english which was most useful, and the demonstrations were fascinating. We were amazed at how much the porcelain shrinks after its firing. And so much work is involved! After the demo we went up to the museum proper, which had hundreds of pieces dating back to the seventeen hundreds. Most of it was exquisite. Some was warped. Some (mainly the new stuff) was hideous heh. Took lots of photos, whoops :) We looked in the shop on the way out. The prices were staggering! Stu would love to have gotten a dragon tea cup and saucer but for about five hundred euros we decided not to heh.
View of Dresden from the train heading out to Meißen
Albrechtsburg and Dom zu Meißen over the Elbe River
Stu outside the Meißen Porcelain Museum
Decorating porcelain
Different stages of the plate glazing process
Meißen porcelain
Meißen porcelain
Meißen porcelain
Meißen porcelain
Look at the exquisite detail!!
An entire dinner party's worth of porcelain
"Girl Playing With Sphere"
Individual pieces that go to make up "Girl Playing With Sphere"
Pipe organ with pipes made out of porcelain
Some of their more recent work - I find it ugly
After we left the museum (two and a half hours later!) we were trying to decide if we should just head back to Dresden or have a look at Meißen. I wanted to have a look at the cathedral, so we decided to walk back into town. Omigosh! I've always had in my head the images of little European towns with little cobblestone streets and town plazas and cute buildings and churches and it was all there!! The fairy-tale picture-book type images were all there just like I imagined them. It was insanely cool to be really there, living this dream I've had for over twenty years. We walked through the centre of the old town and then up to the cathedral and Albrechsburg and took lots of photos.
Alley in Meißen
Cute building in the town square
Carillion of bells made from porcelain
Looking up to the cathedral from the town
These things just seemed so out of place it made me giggle
Meißen red rooves
Elbe River from the cathedral grounds
Cathedral grounds
Meißen Cathedral
So then came back to Dresden. Went out for some dinner - to a Turkish place. I asked for a "klein" turkish pizza.. But got groß.. I'd hate to think of what their large would be if *that* was a small!!
Stu really liked these little gardens with just a shack or shed on them and
somewhere for people to actually have their own gardens
We were quite amused by this fetishware in Dresden
The moon is totally upside down in the northern hemisphere!
The internet here is eight euros a day :( Everywhere else it's been free, so that was a bit of a shock :/
The music outside stopped around 10pm.. Which is good because there is no soundproofing whatsoever, and even four flights up we can hear people talking/laughing outside...
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