Dresden and Regensburg
I made a trip to Dresden together with Ulrich over the weekend. After a party
with considerable amounts of beer on Friday evening, it took me a while to get
up on Saturday, so we only left after noon. We arrived at his parent's house in
Dresden-Blasewitz at late afternoon.
After relaxing a bit (and Ulrich getting in an argument with his mother about
his (supposedly too long) hair and his messed up outfit), we two went for a
walk around in Blasewitz and later over the
Blaues Wunder to Loschwitz,
where we had a local dark beer in a Biergarten just next to the bridge. I was
quite impressed by the beauty of the old (renovated) houses in that area. We sat a while at the bank of the Elbe, drank the beer and ate a Bratwurst. Later on,
we walked around a bit in Loschwitz and then back through Blasewitz and Striesen to a very cool Biergarten called 'El Horst' (Bene's favorite's spot in Dresden)where we had another beer. It was quite late then, so we decided to go back to
his parent's house, having another beer on their tiny balcony and listening to
a band playing swing at a marriage party nearby.
On Sunday, we took the
bikes and drove along the Elbe towards the city center. The Elbe banks are a
true marvel. There are at least 100 meters of grass between the river and the
first buildings on both sides. On the north banks, small hills with wonderful
villas, beautiful castles and vineyards. The UNESCO has declared the Elbe banks
to Wold cultural heritage, and after seeing it with my own eyes, I can nothing
but agree.
The city center is quite small (compared to Munich or Berlin),
but the density of renovated historic sandstone buildings is stunning. We rode
around a bit, seeing the arts academy, the police department (very nice front, but a very distasteful concrete block has been added at the back), the recently
reconstructed Frauenkirche (Ulrich saw it without the scaffold for the first time) and
the palais of the saxonian kings (which is still being renovated). We visited
the Hofkirche of the saxonion ruling family (while saxony itself was protestant,the king converted to catholicism at one point in order to become the king of
Poland) and later the Zwinger (where ferocious beast used to be displayed and
see battles played). We then picked up the bikes again and rode through the
Neustadt with its more alternative scenery. After that, we rode back along the
north bank of the Elbe, stopping at the Rosengarten to have yet another dark beer. After that, we drove all the way along the Elbe to Schloss Pillnitz and back.
The whole day biking was quite exhausting, on the one hand because I did not
ride a bike in years, on the other hand because the weather was extremely hot.
I originally planned to visit my second cousin Alexander, but was too
tired then. So we just had dinner with Ulrich's parents and later some other
beers on the balcony.
On Monday, we drove towards home after breakfast. We made an extensive stop at
Regensburg, visiting the old city and the dome and eating a Döner and later
drinking a Weissbier. Regensburg is really pretty as well, there are a lot of
very narrow alleyways in the historic town. Afterwards, we drove to the Walhalla,
a greek-style temple on a hill slightly outside of Regensburg. The view from
there is breath-taking, on can look over the Donau southwards over Bavaria. The
temple contains the heads of famous or important german people, from kings over
generals, artists to scientists.
Very nice trip overall, except my car started making strange noises towards the end.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
mbanck's journal
