so, dresden. beautiful city, for one whose principal claim to fame is having the holy hell bombed out of it. note the cranes in the skyline. this was from an evening walk, and a lovely evening it was. especially because the day was really nasty and rainy. we never really intended to end up in dresden; it just so happened that the people who checked us out of our berlin hostel said it was better than leipzig (our original destination), and then there was a dresden train leaving in five minutes rather than an hour and a half once we were at the train station. so, dresden it was.
a church tower in dresden. it had mostly survived, though another side of it had clearly been rebuilt.
me in a pretty sort of garden by the river, next to all the (rebuilt) landmarks of the old city.
now we're in leipzig, and this is a picture of the prettiest church interior i've ever seen. the picture, unfortunately, does not do it justice. incidentally, the church is nikolai kirche, which was the site of some very famous protests right before the wall came down.
speeding through eastern germany, we now find ourselves in zwickau. there, we stayed with some of eric's family and they fed us like it was their job. oh man, so much bratwurst. but here is eric, onkel gottfried, his cousin's girlfriend, and in the carriage, jan. i found a friend in jan; he spoke about as much german as i did.
continuing to speed through eastern germany, this is at a castle near jena. that's anne, our gracious hostess, and in the back, her boyfriend. jena was cool. it's an old university town, and i think it's what chapel hill would be like if you made chapel hill magically turn into a medieval german town. and built a castle near it.
in the garden of the castle place. i think in another couple weeks, the roses went crazy.
the view. not bad. incidentally, my favorite part about going to the castle was the drive. the usual route was blocked, which forced a twisting route through the country past tiny tiny towns and farmlands; it was absolutely gorgeous.