lafehubert

We started off our day with a stop in a the café across the street and had coffee and cake for breakfast, and then made our way to the river. It was a pretty hot day already, so we meandered across the Karlův most(Charles Bridge), which turns out to be a nice pedestrian-only bridge with great view of the river and the castle. We dodged gawking tourists, buskers, and hawkers, stopping occasionally to get a selfie or a photo of the castle, and got to the other side, and it turned out there was both a Starbucks and a tram ticket machine, so we stopped for iced lattes (did I mention it was a hot day?) and bought some tram tickets. After a while, we decided to head on up to the castle (Pražský hrad) so ... read more

Today, we leave Dresden and travel to Prague. Dieter told us "no alarms", so we set our alarms for an hour later than usual, and got enough later that we're pretty sure we satisfied him. We had the usual breakfast, and then went on a driving tour of various other things he wanted to show us, the most important being the "milk shop". We drove around, and he told us all kinds of stuff, most of which I don't remember because I mostly wasn't all that awake (Cheryl may have more details on what we saw from the car). But we eventually ended up in the Äußere Neustadt of Dresden, and we stopped and parked so that we could step into Pfunds Molkerei, or the "milk shop". Sadly, they did not allow photos, so I didn't ... read more

After another late night, it was another not-so-early-but-early-enough morning for us. We had two things on the docket for today: the king's hunting lodge, Schloß Moritzburg, and Meißen, a nearby city containing a porcelain factory and another castle and impressive cathedral. After the usual groggy, quiet breakfast, we piled in the car again, and headed out for Moritzburg. First, though, Dieter took us on a slow drive through Hellerau, known as the "Garden City". It seems to be made up almost completely of very small houses and apartments, each with a small garden with flowers or vegetables or both; this makes for a beautiful environment which appears to be very quiet and slow-paced. It is also the home of the Festspielhaus Hellerau, which Dieter drove by for us. It h... read more

Today was day one of the Dieter Tour, beginning with the Altstadt (old city; ironicially, the Altstadt is newer than the Neustadt, the new city). We had a very familiar breakfast of Brötchen, Käse, Wurst, Butter, Marmelade, Kaffee und Orangensaft, and then headed out by Straßenbahninto the city center. We hopped off and walked a short way to the Brühlsche Terraße which overlooks the Elbe, the Augustusbrücke, and parts of the old and new cities (the new city is across the Elbe from the old city). From this park, you can see all kinds of stuff; it's a good Überblick (overview) of what's around: the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), Semperoper (opera house), the Hofkirche (a Catholic cathedral fo... read more

Our stay in Berlin was over, so we had one more breakfast in the breakfast room, bid farewell to our hosts at Pension Peters, and made our way to the Hauptbahnhof to catch our train to Leipzig. It was another ICE (inter city express), and we had reserved first class seats, so naturally, our car was almost empty; there was only a single passenger other than us. The train ride to Leipzig is only about an hour, so we didn't have time to get uncomfortable or sore or anything, and actually, I barely had time to drink my coffee before we got to the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof. We disembarked and found the exit we needed and headed across the street to our hotel, and checked in. It turned out to be a pretty nice room, with air ... read more