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.