Dresden

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After a nearly sleepless night of desperately trying to finish my Art History midterm, I got up at 6:30am in order to make it to the trainstation by 8 for our trip to Dresden. Except for my excursion to Poland the first weekend, this was the first time that I had been outside of the suburbs of Berlin. Despite my tiredness, I was quite excited.
I do not remember a great deal of the train ride because I slept through a good chunk of it, but I do remember a bit of the German landscape and how significantly different and yet eerily familiar it is. I think I have mentioned earlier that the area of Germany in which Berlin lies is rather climactically similar to Michigan, with lots of rain and warmth from the proximity to the North Sea and a very flat geography. The landscape reminded me a lot of Michigan or Ohio where I used to live in this respect. However, there are scattered villages that the train ran by that reminded me how far from the midwest I am. I do not know how old the villages were, but they definitely told the story of a much older Germany with red-tiled roofs and stucco walls. Also, the horizon is periodically interrupted by huge windmills for producing electricity. I can sort of see why Don Quixote might think that they were Giants!

We got to Dresden about midday and started off promptly with a quick tour of the city. The area where our Hostel was, was only a short walk from the Old City center, but with the wonderful examples of Communist Architecture, it was rather hard to realize that. We started off the tour near the New Market, which had been almost entirely destroyed during a bombing raid in early 1945. Much of it has been rebuilt, but the area is still mostly a giant construction zone. They have almost nearly completed the Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady), which is absolutely beloved by the Dresdeners. Although today no more than 5% of Dresdeners practice any sort of religion, the Frauenkirche is so important for the Dresdeners as a landmark and cultural and architectual monument to their history, that they rebuilt it from its ruins at absolutely magnificent costs! From the New Market, we walked around the city, seeing some of the various other architectural landmarks, including the Royal Palace, the Church of the Cross, the Opera House.

It was getting rather cold and windy and after our long tour, we took a break in a little coffee house, that was actually designed in the Neoclassical style by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the famous Berlin architect that we have gotten to known and love so well in Berlin. In there, I had one of the most amazing pastires that I have ever seen or tasted. It was called Waldfruchtkuche, which roughly translates to “Forest Fruits Cake” and it was a jello-y rainbow of kiwis and blueberries and strawberries and peaches all on top of a creamy, fruity filling. It was amazing.

Then, we took a miniature vacation from the touring to see a completely new part of Dresden. VW decided that Dresden would be a good place to build its new “Glass Factory” where they build their new $90,000 luxury cars. We took a tour of the factory, which is, in fact, almost entirely glass. It is definitely the least factor-like factory that I have ever seen. It had a café in front and even on the inside, all of the floors were wood panelled. Instead of housing the finished cars in a warehouse, the factory has its own “Auto tower” which is a 50m tall glass tower where all of the completed cars are stored, and where passers-by can admire them. The best part was that at the end of the tour, we could try an amazingly realistic virtual driving simulator. It was probably the closest that I will ever get to driving one of these cars, and it was quite fun! I took the car onto the virtual speedway and got it up to 160 mph! Weee!

That evening we went to a concert of the Dresden Symphony Orchestra which was performing in the Opera House. The opera house itself is amazingly beautiful on the inside with just about every square inch of it covered in gilding or sculpture or painting. The performance was the overture from Parsifal by Wagner (a beautiful piece of music that I own a cd of), a Lizst piano concerto (which was brilliantly performed by young Chinese pianist) and Schummans 1st Symphony. The Wagner piece was as beautiful as I know from the recording. The Liszt piece was exactly the way I had heard Liszt described: it was very showy and exciting, but really does not have much content or interest to the music besides the fireworks. I do not remember much of the symphony because I was exhausted by that point.

The next day, we explored more of interior Dresden. Dresden has a number of important art galleries, particularly of older works that were collected in the days when the King of Saxony (of which Dresden is the capital) was also king of Poland and the city reached its heyday of cultural and political importance. Probably the most exciting painting that I saw there was Raphael’s Sistine Madona, which is by far the most striking and beautiful Madona painting that I have seen. As you probably know, most of them are just Mary sitting with baby Jesus and are not particularly interesting. However, in this painting, Mary is walking forward, with the wind sweeping her cloak back. She stares directly at the viewer with an air of determination and expecation. Two saints stand before her, imploring her on when her Son will return again. Behind her are a host of faces of heavenly hosts and the over the top of the painting is drapped a green shroud (green being the color of Hope in traditional Christian art). It is a magnificent painting. About the only part I do not like about it are the two angels on the bottom that are probably today much more popular and well-known than the painting themselves. I am sure you have seen them on advertisements, postcards, etc - two little baby angels waiting and pondering. They are a rather strange contrast to the rest of the painting, and I would be happier probably if they just were never put in there to begin with.

There was also a museum of old scientific instruments. It was not very big, but it was fairly fascinating to look at old balistic charts and meter sticks and navigation equipment. It is surprising how advanced some of the engineering and science even was that far back. Even the measuring equipment from the 1500s was fairly accurate and looked quite well-made.

Probably the most exciting and interesting part of the artistic parts of Dresden for me was the Grüne Gewölde, or Green Vault, that housed the royal treasures. Due to its proximity to mountains very rich in gold, silver and prescious stones, and combined with booming profits from porcelain exports, the Dresden royal family had a huge and magnificent treasury that is today on display in a musuem, which occupies the same location as the old royal treasury (the Green Vault as it was known). It is a massive and amazing collection of jewels, and stones and jewelry, but probably some of the best items are not things that you would normally think of as being in a royal treasury.

In the first room there are several clocks dating back to about the 16th Century which are made almost entirely out of Gold and are about a three feet high! They have to be because for the most part they are regulated by an ingenious system of ramps for balls to roll down, which activate little mechanical figures who have little things to do on every minute or hour. Unfortunately, the clock is not particularly accurate, losing about 20 min a day. Another spectacular item is a fabulous sculpture of a ship, about 4 feet high and made entirely out of carved ivory. The ship is in full sale, with little figures inside and is held up on the bottom by Neptune who carries it along over the waves. There is also a huge coffee set there with accompanying saucers and plate holders that is made almost entirely out of gold! They think it probably was never used for coffee because it would be too heavy to lift!

Probably the most spectacular item is a model of a Mongol Throne Room. It was built around the time of the power of the Mongol Empire and made to express such power. Several hundred figures, about two inches high (and of course made entirly out of gold) pay homage to the Kahn over a 6 foot by 4 foot model. They each have gifts, which are correct down to the last detail. One person brings an atlas of the world, which, though no more than an inch square, still has 8 illustrated pages, the coins in the money basket are each individually carved. Each figure is individually painted. It is absolutely amazing! It was quite possibly the highlight of the Dresden trip for me.

After some time wandering around Dresden, we met back up at the Hotel, packed up and got on a Train for Prague!

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