Dresden: three more pleasant sights/sites

Zwinger Crown Gate...and two strollers

A look at the Old Town, tram, and tram wires at night...and also a car.

View of the Frauenkirche from across the river Elbe

Dresden-The grass withers, the flower fades.

I noticed that Kurt Vonnegut died this past week, so I decided it's way past high time for me to put up an entry on Dresden. The reference here, if you haven't read Slaughterhouse Five, is that Kurt Vennegut was a POW in Dresden at the end of WWII.

Dresden was a great stop on my way from Prague to Berlin. The city apparently hit its heyday in the 1700s but, unfortunately, it seems to be best known for its fate during World War II.

In February of 1945, American and British forces firebombed the city, destroying 85% of the Old Town and killing 50,000 people.

A bit of the Old Town, near the river.

The Frauenkirche was pretty much completely leveled by the bombing. Actually, they say the church stayed standing for two days, then collapsed. The pile of rubble was left as a peace monument until 14 years ago, when reconstruction began.

The black freckles on the church are original stones. Used where ever possible, you can only see a few from this side-in the back, lower left is a larger original section.

The cross that originally topped the church's dome was pretty badly melted, so a new one had to be made. The man for the job was an English coppersmith. His father was a pilot who dropped bombs on Dresden in 1945.

Dresden Hofkirche, post-reconstruction.





Panel from the Memorial Chapel in the Hofkirche. (Comfort, comfort my people, says the Lord our God. All mortal [flesh] is like grass; all of its beauty a flower in the field).

Prague castle

View of Prague Castle (and a bird) from the St. Charles Bridge.

















Basilica of St. George inside the castle grounds. It was a grey day-I liked the color.

What else to say about Prague? The Gothic architechture around the main square reminds me of something out of Disney's Sleeping Beauty. The city is sometimes Bohemian, sometimes classically European, sometimes ultra-hip. Some local specialties that I especially enjoyed were wooden puppets, Pilsner Urquell beer, corn husk Christmas ornaments, and the tastey rolley treat that I put in the last post. A good Prague walked entailed me getting some coffee, walking thorugh the Sleeping Beauty area, walking through the old Jewish quarter, and then walking under all of the saint statues on the Charles Bridge and listening to the street jazz musicians.

Masses in front of St. Vitus Cathedral

AND NOW, Monica presents...Shining Moments in the History of Rational Behavior.

Once upon a time, in 1618, right before the 30 Years' War, the Protestants and Catholics in Bohemia had a little dispute (it was the order of the day). The Protestants wanted to build some chapels. Catholic officials halted the construction of the chapels, claiming they were building on Catholic land. The Protestants didn't like having their chapel-building interrupted, so they held a trial in Prague Castle accusing two Imperial governors of violating the Right of Freedom of Religion. They found the two men guilty, and proceeded to throw them and their scribe out one of the windows.

Don't worry, no one was hurt. They landed in a pile of horse manure. Divine equine intervention?

Here's something new to look at: Prague

Old Town Square- it's a nice day for a white wedding.

Old Town Square: view of clock tower, Tyn Church, and colorful buildings.

Clock tower/Town Hall in Old Town Square

St. Charles Bridge

St. Charles Bridge again, with better light and people selling artwork

Can't remember what this is called, but it's really tastey!

That Tuesday

On my way from Salzburg to Prague, I ended up in Munich again. On Faschings Dienstag (Fat Tuesday). On Faschings Dienstag in Munich, all the stores close early. People get dressed up in whatever crazy constume they can put together; they dress up their kids, if they have any. If not, the dog makes an eqaully cute victim. Then they head down to the old town which is full of food vendors, beer vendors, and confetti vendors. The purpose of the confetti is to throw a disorienting handful of color at every stranger that you pass. Small children are especially fond of this tradition.
If you are stoic enough to resist confetti, beer, and people dressed in varying degrees of hilarity, just wait until the live music begins and 1,000 Germans start jumping around and singing along to "Show me the way to Amarillo." That was when I headed for the beer stand.



Main square: City Hall, music, crowds, flags, beer, bratwurst, confetti...
















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Armed and dangerous (yes, I see the irony)
















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Women of God




















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"There'll be time enough for rocking when we're old. We can rock all day in rocking chairs of gold. But tonight I think I'd rather just go dancing...there'll be time enough for rocking when we're old, my love. Time enough for rocking when we're old" -Stephen Merritt














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Impromptu parade














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Confetti Lady

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Can't...go...on...having...too...much.....fun.

Salzburg: the rest of the story.

Here is the rest of Salzburg-home to 38 Catholic churches, 2 Mozart houses, a fortress, a salt mine, a river, some mountains, an Abbey, and several good places to have coffee.
I really like this city. It's a pretty tame place, but the view is great, the air is clean, and it's a good city to stroll and relax in.
Plus, um, you know...the hills are alive...

Franciscan chruch (left), Salzburg Cathedral (right), and gray rainbow (middle-look closely)

















View of Salzburg fortress from St. Peter's Cemetary














Salzburg Cathedral, interior























View of the city from the Salzburg fortress-nice day!

Academy Award-winning Salzburg

Here's a subject I just love to talk about: me, between the ages of 13 and 16. Ah, yes. Let's not dwell on that memory too long. I only mention it, because it was during this lovely era that my personal devotion to The Sound of Music reached it's height. Around the beginning of High School, I'm pretty sure I wanted to be Julie Andrews (circa 1965).
Seriously. Is it not one of the greatest movies of all time? And don't write a comment saying that Citizen Kane is a better piece of cinema because Orson Wells mumbling "Rosebud" just doesn't hold a candle to Christopher Plummer singing Edelweiss.
Ahem.
So anyway, I was in Salzburg and hadn't done anything cheesey for a while, so I went on a Sound of Music bus tour. Great time! We even went to the church where Maria and Captain Von Trapp got married! Sigh...

Mirabell Gardens: "So, a needle pulling thread..."





The Gazebo. You can't go inside anymore. Apparently, a while back, an 80-year-old visitor was attempting to re-enact the 16 Going On 17 dance and broke her hip on one of the benches...

Nothing says here come the tourists like...

Ein schoener Traum

Vienna's old town is encircled by a wide, busy street known as the Ringstrasse. The Ring is actually a marker of where the old medieval town wall stood before it was torn down in the 1860s to make way for the city's growth. A lot of the city's most important buildings line this street: the University, City Hall, Parliment, Natural History and Art History Museums, and Hofburg Palace. I could hop on the tram by Edith's apartment and have a little drive-by tour of all of these buildings before finally ending up at the Staatsoper. Yeah, I did that a few times.

My favorite building to watch at night was the City Hall (Rathaus). I say watch because during the winter, Vienna has a huge public ice skating rink set up in front of the Rathaus. There are food stands, the local pop radio station broadcasts live, and they light the place up like a disco. I'm kind of surprised that they got the OK to have the long-range, neon green searchlights, but they are definitely a very cool effect. You can see them all the way on the other side of the old town. I discovered this one night when I went out to get dinner. I was looking for the moon, but instead I noticed, "Oh look, green lights. People must be ice skating."

The city calls their City Hall ice rink the Wiener Eis Traum, which means Viennese ice dream. Good name.

Vienna Collage

A small fraction of the royal silver and
porcelain collection

Beethoven's grave

Brahms' grave

Goethe statue in traffic (Dad, is that you?!)

Staatsoper in snow...lots of snow...and also some wind.

Hostess with the mostess

Since I was in Vienna for a relatively long period of time, I stayed in an apartment. This was especialy nice beause I had access to a kitchen, laundry, and a lot more privacy than in hostels. Ms. Edith, the woman who owns the apartment where I stayed, is actually Hungarian, but has lived in Vienna for a long time. She has a beautiful Old World apartment near the Boerse (old Viennese stock exchange), which is right in the center of town.

Anyway, Edith was nice enough to take me to several great out-of-the-way spots in Vienna. My favorite was the Piaristenkeller, a traditional cellar restaurant that opened in 1698. It's located in the cloisters of the Piaristenkirch, a Baroque church where Haydn, Mozart, and many other famous musicians have performed. A waiter there gave us lessons in napkin origami. I had Fasancremsuppe (cream of pheasant soup). Yum!

Also adding to the charm of Edith's place was the fact that she makes good coffee, has a big shelf of books in English, has a good sense of humor, and played a recording of Tschaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet during breakfast. Danke, Edith!

At the Piaristenkellar

The Boerse, next to Edith's place

Mom and Dad always liked you best

Here's an interesting story.
Once upon a time in the 1700s, the empress Maria Theresa ruled the Hapsburg Empire. M.T. was quite an impressive, powerful lady, not least because she was the mother of 16 children. Of all her children, M.T. had a favorite daughter named Maria Christina, and she was the only one allowed to marry for love. Christina chose a guy from Saxony named Albert, and they lived happily ever after. Christina's sisters were strategically married into other important European families. Of course, arranged marriages were pretty common in royal families. In fact, one of Christina's sisters scored an especially adventageous marriage to the French king! Ah yes, unfortunately, it was the best of times and the worst of times in France. It was definitely the worst of times to be French royalty. Although this poor sister's story unhappily ended with the words, "Off with her head!" she did end up to be more famous than the happily-married Christina. Her name, of course, was Marie Antoinette.

Maria Christina's memorial in the Augustinerkirche

The Augustinerkirche (Augustinian Church) is where the Hapsburgs held Royal weddings, and also where they buried their hearts. Seriously. Their hearts are physically kept in the vault here. Their bodies are in a nearby imperial crypt, and their entrails are in the crypt of the Stephansdom. You know how the saying goes: don't put all your eggs in one basket, people.






above: looking toward the front altar of the Augustinerkirche
left: looking back toward the rear of the church; open door





















Since we're kind of on the subject of churches, this is the Karlskirche (Charles Church). I especially like visiting this church because, well, it's quite pretty, but also because they are in the middle of a big restoration project in the dome. There's a big service elevator right in the middle of the sanctuary! That doesn't sound very nice, I know, but it's actually really cool because you can take the elevator up to some scaffolding at the top of the dome and be right up next to the painted ceiling. Plus, the elevator is glass, so on the way up, you can pretend that you're flyyyyying!



top: Karlskirche, view from under a tree.
bottom: A smiley Jesus, a row of angel heads, and a jolly old God The Father
...clearly, this must be heaven!

Staatsoper

Behold: the Staatsoper

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Grand staircase






















One of my favorite places in Vienna is the Staatsoper. Vienna has one of the most famous opera houses in the world, and the put on a different performance almost every night. Going to the opera in Vienna is a big social event. If you want to see what's new in fur and diamonds this season in Europe, check out the lounge at the Staatsoper during an intermission. Luckily, the opera house sells a few hundred standing room tickets for each perfomance so that students and vacationing nurses can afford to go. You can get a good view on the main floor for 3 Euros. That's the price of a Starbucks coffee, people!

Balconies in the grand staircase

On stage after Falstaff

Whilst in Vienna, I went to four operas and two ballets at the Staatsoper. The famous Welsh baritone, Bryn Terfel was performing with the opera company in February and I got to see him twice! Therefore, I am now officially an opera snob.

I also discovered that I have an insatiable love for the ballet. After one especially charming performance, I had a wierd headache that I couldn't figure out. Then I realized: I had been grinning like an idiot for three straight hours and had pulled every muscle in my face.