Guten tag!
We arrived in Dresden at 9.45 pm and once off the train, Martin was waiting there meet us, a very excited Martin, grabbing Mike in a great big bear hug before Mike even had a chance to put down his hand luggage and then shaking my hand continuously for about 1 minute - you know how you joke about someone not letting go of your hand when you shake hands, well it actually happened.
Martin did the same Masters course as Mike at Lincoln and for Lincolnites, it was Martins van that sat at the roundabout flat for most of last year. They get along really well. So we walked back to Martins flat where we had some tea, mmm more german bread, and had a good ol catch up and then it was times to catch some zzzz's in preparation for a busy next day.
A bike tour around old Dresden town was on the cards and fuelled on with Breadlets and elderflower and also elderberry jelly (both are very very good!) we hopped on our faithful steads - mine was one of the older bikes with no gears, pedal brakes and an actual girls seat - it was fantastic. Oh and it had a bell - all bikes have bells in Germany to tell pedestrians in front to get out of the way. b-rrrrinnng b-rrrring! Now there are a few issues with riding your bike in Germany when you are from New Zealand, A - they drive on the right which can be rather hazardous when you dont know the roads and dont know which way to look and B no one in Germany (or Paris for that matter which is even crazier considering the ridiculous traffic) wears a bike helmet. For a kiwi kid indoctrinated on 'Kool Kids Wear LIds' at primary school, this was a hard one to swallow. The good thing about Germany is that it is bike friendly, there are lots of pedestrian/bike zones and cars in general seem a whole lot more patient and careful around cyclists.
First on our list of places to visit was the Autumn market. It consist of small log cabins completely decorated which fake sunflowers and brown and yellow fabric in a square and the sell things like pffefferkuchen - gingerbread, toffee nuts, hand embroidery, sausages, jewellery and what we were after - the wooden christmas decoration stalls. Dresden is famous for its Christmas market and part of the reason why is that what the germans call christmas land is ver close to Dresden and this is where the traditional hand made christmas decorations are made. I think it is called siphon but i dont know how to spell it! They are beautiful. One of my favourites were the whirly gigs ( my name for them) that had a scene carved in the middle - often more than one level - and at the top was what looked like a windmill. There were places for candles around the outside and when these where lit the hot air from the flame made the windmill turn which in turn made the wooden scene turn in the middle. Unfortunately they were completely unairplane friendly. They were bound not to come out alive at the other end, which was a shame.
There were lots of christmas incense burners and little wooden christmas decorations for the tree. And it was somwhat cheaper being autumn rather than Christmas!
We jumped on our bikes and went to check out the Frauenskisrch ( womens church) which was extensively bombed in WWII - they left the pile of rubble and standing remains as a symbol of the war for long time - apparently it was 30m tall! Martin can still remember as a child seeing the rubble so it is only in relatively recent times that it was rebuilt. The reamins of the wall still standing were included in the new building and stone blocks recovered from the rubble were reused - they say in the same place as in the original building but i'm not so sure about that....
Its made out of sandstone - most old buildings in Dresden are - and as a result of a chemical reaction it turns black as it ages so the church was yellow in the new parts and blacky-grey in the original parts. We went to the lunchtime service - no english translation headpieces here, so martin translated the best he could, but even without translation we recognised the Lords Prayer being said by the rythym of the words so we coulod join in that. They had an organist who played some of Bach's work to start the service - i forget the name but you know the piece that starts off dumdumdum daaaaaah, dumdumdum daaaaaaah....... you might recognise it but take it from me - it was spine tingling!
From there we headed over to the what translates as the 'cross church' and climbed the tower to get a view over the city. It was very nice - the River Elbe winds its way through the middle of the town. The bells in the tower were just massive! i have no idea how they got them up there but job well done!
At this point it was time for lunch - so we set out on a hunt for german sausages and Apple strudel and real black forest cake - The apple strudel was proving elusive, cafes had run out, so we settled for sausages in buns and black forest cake and another sort of cake that was a mix between sponge and mousse. not much flavour to that one but the black forest cake was declared a winner. Back on the bikes wew headed down to the riverside to see the palace, opera house, church and 'zwinger' - just a note to anyone travelling with Mike, if you are going anywhere that may have something that you can take a photo of allow lots of time because he will take on average 456 photos while you are there . It was often the case of 'where's Mike gone? Oh there he is, taking another photo....' We went into the Zwinger, its an ornate baroque style building, all symmetrical, built around a large courtyard that has a large fountain and grass in patterns. The buildings are all museums but we didnt go in. The Louvre has filled my museum requirements for the next 10 years i think!
Then we proceeded on the search for the elusive Apple Strudel. It was harder than you would think! But we succeeded. It was strange however to sit across from a german cafe called "Ayers Rock" The studel however was exemplary, the garnish was a differnt story. they used unripe starfruit which in my opinion tasted like bean sprouts. not at all complimentary to apple, pastry and custard!!
With that need fulfilled we headed off on a ride along the River Elbe walkway, stopping only for Martin to realise his Bike wheel had somehow warped and was rubbing and he couldnt keep riding so he took Mikes Bike and rode back to his place to get tools while we sat and mucked around taking photos and videos. With that slight hiccup fixed we continued on our way. The walkway was good except for areas of stone paving that rattled you something crazy on a bike and gave you a numb bum if it went on for too far!
We headed back to Martins flat for a BBQ with his flatmates where we ate more German sausages and laughed about Martins attempts to cook something vegetarian on the BBQ, He roasted a whole block of feta cheese and herbs and garlic in foil - and then shared it so there was hardly any left for him! It was pretty darn good! And then there was the mocking of each others language that becomes somewhat inevitable and the correction of prononciation of the V's and the W's - Germans can't hear the difference and say things like 'wictum' instead of 'victim'.
It was an enjoyable night.
The next morning, after some more shopping at the autmn market - by the way pffefferkuchen - gingerbread cake - is really good!! we boarded a train for a national park somewhere along the River Elbe and near the border with Czech Republic. We used a ferry to cross the river and then boarded a ramshackle tram to take us up one of the side valleys to the start of our walk. The national park has enormous sandstone outcrops - which result in a landscape not too dissimilar to Australias Northern Territory - well rather different vegetation and climate - with lots of rock formations. we took the easy route up to the sandstone plateau and its viewpoints as the boys were constrained somewhat by me. I am not a rock climber and have no aspirations of becoming one so we took the stairs. These ranged from metal grills with hand rails to steps cut into the rock to foot positions worn away by visitors to the park ( and in some cases bum positions where people had sidled down a rock, sitting down!) to the more extreme vertical steel ladders with hand rails so far out from the ladder you were leaning out into space if you used them rather than the rungs to hang on to.
It was a long day but the views were just incredible - in one place we were on a cliff face with a vertical wall behind us, an metre or so for a path with metal rings embedded in the wall as hand holds and a sheer cliff on the edge. Not exactly my comfort zone. Martin and Mike on the other hand go and stand on the edge of a rock outcrop to take photos looking down. It gave me the heebie jeebies just looking at them. and so i told them so. and they were very nice and came away from the edge. Mike took so many photos he ran out of batteries before he ran out of memory. To finish the day we watched the sunset from the last viewpoint which was just incredible. This was followed by having to get down off the sandstone plateau (a drop of 50 metres easily) which was done by a series of the vertical ladders i described earlier and then walking down to the valley floor and back to Bad Schanau in the dusk. The whole day Martin had been pointing out mushrooms, there are many different types in germany and many are apparently edible - when he saw one that was Martin would stop and point it out and then pick it to take it home for eating. That is if the snakes hadnt gotten to the underside first! We saw one of these snakes - a copper coloured one and a mighty length of 10 cm or so. It wasnt poisonous so Mike picked it up - he was so stoked to be holding a wild snake in his hands.
Feeling rather weary from the day, we caught the train back to Dresden and then we had to pack
in order that we could catch the 7.20 am train to Leipzig which allowed us to catch the 9.55am airport shuttle bus from Leipzig to Altenham Aiport (blimmen Ryan Air!!) which deposited us there at 11.20am in order to catch the 12.50 flight. The airport was smaller and a whole lot more primitive than Invercargill Airport. Apparently RyanAir buys old military airports and this is why they can run such cheap flights! So after the rigorous german customs check point where Mike got pulled aside and his luggage swabbed for who knows what - dont worry it came back all clear and he was allowed to pass. Sifty looking Mike aye!?
So we finally board the airplane at 1pm and after another rousing Ryan Air take off we were headed back for English soils.
Arriving at Stansted Airport, we were treated to another grilling at customs because although we had Katherine's correct street address in Oxford for our details in the UK we did not have the postcode!!!! Oh my goodness!!! My goodness they take their jobs seriously! Come on guys - the postcode!! We navigated the arrivals area and went to wait for Mikes Dad who was picking us up on route to meet his Plane back to New Zealand. Nice to see a familiar face.
Ok, i must go and pack my bag for Hong Kong
Till next time!
Love KJ
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