Into Saechsisches Schweiz - and beyond

(having difficulty finding an umlaut here....sorry)

Whilst at the Carl Gustav Carus exhibition, we were interested to see his paintings and drawings of Saechsisches Schweiz - Saxon Switzerland - and the unusual rock formations which he saw there.  Choosing to spend a day exploring some of the area between Dresden and the border with Poland, we were surprised to find that our first stop revealed these same rock formations - at Bastei, high above the Elbe.

Once again, I declined the offer of trying my skills as a mountain goat and left it to Mark and Edward to explore further, for several of these rock towers are linked with small bridges and staircases - I could see small pathways and people climbing in all kinds of precarious locations.  Good for them.

Simply being there with such a terrific view high above the Elbe was enough - it's easy to see why this is one of the most popular visitor locations in the area and yet until now, this was somewhere totally unknown to us.

Looking across the countryside, we could see our next stop - we planned to visit another of the castles on our list: Koenigstein, there on the flat tabletop of the mountain over on the other side of the river.

We arrived to find a highly organised, efficiently run tourist attraction with a multi-storey car park, transport link to the foot of the castle mound and then a "panoramic elevator" up to the castle itself.

Once up there, however, the view was the best part and the castle itself nothing special - we've been spoiled by the Wartburg!

By this time it was early afternoon and the temptation to explore just one more place was too much.  Not only was Goerlitz a most attractive sounding place from our guidebook recommendations, it was also right on the Polish border - and none of us had been to Poland before!

We have now. (Kerchinggggggg)

We really enjoyed looking around this lovely city with so many unspoiled and well maintained buildings.  We explored the market places (three), browsed in Silesian china stores and thought of Helmut Peter, family friend of proud Silesian heritage, and went to see the glass roof in the Art Deco Hertie store which was having a closing down sale.

We'd enjoyed one of those special days when one great experience is followed by an altogether different but equally fascinating one.

We finished it off with leberkase, schweinbraten and weissbier too.  How good is that?

The fun continues

Here in Dresden, where one intrepid member of the family (not me) was happy to climb to the dome of the newly rebuilt Frauenkirche and take a few photographs.

The interior gets mixed reviews from these parts.  Whilst we have all marvelled at the structure from the outside, only Mark was in favour of the interior decor.  Both Edward and I felt it too sugar-sweet, too pastel and gold and way too theatrical to inspire either of us, sadly.  Of course, the hordes of tourists trouping around, blatantly ignoring the "no photography" signs and treating the whole place like a free-for-all didn't help.

But it's good that such an enormous project has succeeded and we are all in awe of the vision and confidence that inspired those who have managed the project to a successful conclusion.

We resisted the temptation of a stretch Trabi for our tour and instead, walked the streets on foot, exploring all the major sights in a surprisingly compact area with no trouble.

This masterpiece (the Furstenzug) is just around the corner from our hotel and is hugely impressive, being contsructed by thousands and thousands of Meissen ceramic tiles.

 

 Hard to say what's impressed us most though: the exhibition of Carl Gustav Carus work in the Zwinger gallery, the wealth of old buildings in this corner of the city with a breathtaking view whichever way we look or the kloesse and schweinbraten in the Paulaner stube, best of all accompanied by a large Weissbier or two.

Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to that one.

Small Frustrations

At home we have a relatively efficient broadband connection.  Not the fastest - our rural location means that optical fibre and cable are unlikely to be on offer in the foreseeable future.  But, generally speaking, we can use the internet to do what we want without too much angst.

Here in the eastern reaches of Germany, it's not quite as easy.

I wrote the last blog posts in a smoky cafe in the market square in Weimar, because I felt the hotel charge was extortionate.  The connection there was fast and efficient and cost me virtually nothing as we bought drinks as well.

We are now in Dresden and our elegant, first class hotel offers "fast wifi" at a cost marginally less than the previous one.  We logged on and prepared for catch-up.

Except that it won't upload any photos.  Attempting to post the first of three recent photos of the day to my blog, the progress is so glacially slow that the page falls over before it succeeds.

Patience is called for.

I'm not good at that.

Update on Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 3:28PM by Gill Thomas

Aha!  We've discovered that it's the wifi signal to our room which is weak - by taking baby laptop and sitting elsewhere in the hotel, we can manage better.

Photos are going to appear soon!

A different perspective of an infamous place

We drove from the woods of Thuringia into the high open countryside of Saxony this morning. The countryside is full of windmills – groups of a dozen or so on every hillside as far as the eye can see.

The city of Jena didn’t look inviting enough to stop by, so we continued on towards Dresden, taking detour to visit another castle we’d heard of.

We parked in the square and took a quick look around. These small towns are so picturesque.

Walking up to the castle, we heard music – 75 of Germany’s best string players were staying here on a music retreat and were rehearsing in the castle yard. Standing there amongst them were a couple of cutouts of two former residents of the castle and across the yard were some more.

We decided to take a guided tour during which we heard some familiar stories – of Airey Neave, Pat Reid and Douglas Bader.

Have you guessed where we were yet?

We saw the hidden radio room, the makeshift glider and the homemade sewing machine. Fancy that, a group of professional men imprisoned for some considerable time make a sewing machine from scratch? Yet with this, they were able to make stage costumes - and false uniforms as well. The stories of both successful and thwarted escape attempts were rich and varied and we marvelled at the ingenuity of the captives.

The French tunnel, dug with a tool the size of a knitting needle and a dinner knife was amazing and we tried hard to imagine how they had managed to dispose of the spoils as they dug deeper into the ground. When excavating the tunnel recently it took 3 lorry-loads of earth away – and yet these men disposed of it by taking pocketfuls away at a time.

Our tour finished in the chapel, from where the french tunnel had been dug, and from where we were led onto the terrace high above the river Mulde.

Though clearly, the main interest of most visitors to the castle is the story of those six infamous years, the castle has a longer history to tell.  Most recently, the site of a hospital and care home, but formerly the home of the Elector of Saxony and a prime hunting castle set in parkland, it will soon be home to the Musikhochschule of Saxony and another chapter will begin.  

See what interesting places having historians in the family brings me to?!

To The Wartburg

Perched on top of a hill just outside Eisenach to the west of here, we’d seen the spectacular Wartburg as we drove here. We knew it was a special place and that visitors flock there in their thousands, so we made an early start.

Glorious weather and grand views from the top – yes our car is down there in the car park – we went straight to the ticket office and bought three places on the mandatory guided tour.

Our guide was terrific. He had one of those deep brown German voices, spoke so clearly that we didn’t struggle to hear and we understood enough of what he told us to make it worthwhile. Once again, everything in German and though a leaflet in English was available, we notice how the French, Italians and Spanish visitors struggle here.

Inside was a “real” castle though it had been rebuilt and restored and little was original, it seemed. That didn’t matter to us – the guide’s commentary enlightened me with a bit of German history (the two historians in the family knew most of it already of course) and the interiors were beautifully decorated and sparsely furnished.

“St Elizabeth’s Bower” was a gem with incredible mosaic walls. By hanging back when others moved on, I was able to get some good photos – it helped that I’d discovered (and remembered to use) the ISO setting on my camera, too. The guide was patient and understanding!

The patterns were so diverse and the mosaics so very well executed that we could have spent hours in this room alone, but of course, we had to move on.

The Minstrel’s room was a delight. Not only were the walls painted with trompe d’oeil fabric “wallpaper”, the huge mural on one wall was painted as a tapestry trompe d’oeil as well, depicting one and the same room complete with trompe d’oeil fabric “wallpaper” – this amused me greatly and once again, I could have happily lingered longer here.

The paintings throughout the castle were in a charming style, reminiscent of those old story books found on our grandparents bookshelves with tales of woodland heroes, merry men and brave knights of old. We loved them!

The tour finished in the Great Hall where concerts are held and grand occasions celebrated. Our guide finished his tour and left us to wander through the remaining museum collections at our own pace at which point we realised that, though we knew that Martin Luther had been at the Wartburg for some time, we hadn’t seen any references to him so far.

Here they were. This was where he’d taken refuge and where he’d translated the Bible into German. His working copy of the Bible was there, as was his handwritten translation. What a treasure – and in fine condition, too.

Our way out of the castle was through the inevitable gift shop where small children pleaded for wooden swords, shields and armour and where one rather older young man eyed them in the knowledge that he too would have once given eye teeth for such things!