Fortresses in Sächsische Schweiz

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I thought today was going to be a (relatively) short day, but I tend to be wrong about these things. Today was a national holiday in Germany, Ascension Day, and there was this big church conference or something happening in Dresden so there were so many PEOPLE everywhere. It was a real pain to get around, I won't lie. And today was the day we headed out to Sächsische Schweiz (Saxony Switzerland), which is this national park south of Dresden with mountains and old castles and fortresses in it.

The first thing we did when we got there was to take the ferry across the river to the other side, where the hike up to Sächsische Schweiz started. And by hike, I really do mean hike. We went HIGH. Stairs after stairs after uphill trails, and I'd been prepared for this but it was a lot colder than the weather had forecasted. I didn't bring my sweatshirt with me which was infinitely stupid, lol. But we finally got to the ruins of a castle/fortress up on the hills which was really, really amazing. The bridges and the walls and the remains of it that where the metal scaling was built around so we could see everything- it was GORGEOUS. I'm hoping that the pictures do it justice, but they probably don't. And we were SO high. Anna and Kara have a problem with heights, so this part wasn't great for them, but it was seriously amazing.

Then we got up to the highest point and stopped for lunch, since there's a big set-up there. It was really good and we got ice cream afterwards, so I was pretty happy on the walk back down towards the village again, if a bit cold. We took the ferry back over and then the group stopped for a beer, and split up- some people wanted to go home, and the rest of us went on with Dr. G to the fortress. We thought we were going to have to walk up to that, too, but Dr. G got us bus tickets instead and we got to ride up to the fortress.

The fortress itself was very neat. Really high and walking through the buildings and overlooking the cliffs and rocks was totally amazing. I'm always reminded how just mind-blowing it is to be doing what I'm doing and seeing what I'm seeing here, since I never really thought I'd ever get to Europe like this. We saw most everything, including this EXTREMELY deep well they had used to get water to the fortress (they did some demonstrations for us) and by the time we made our way back down to the village again, there was a drag show going on in the square. Happy Man Day! Hahaha.

We were pretty beat from all the hiking, so the girls were making dinner and I just made myself some pasta instead. Still a 10 hour day of walking around. I swear, my feet are going to fall off of my body by the end of this. And we have a 2-day excursion to Weimar/Leipzig starting early early tomorrow morning, so I'm going to head to bed early to get ready for that. :)

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