Florence on the Elbe

Still being pressed by our deadline of only 3 weeks in Germany and with an easter weekend looming we ploughed on, and on Saturday visited the city of Dresden, once so picturesque that it was named Florence on the Elbe.

Waking up in perhaps not the most glamorous of locations we were greeted with the view of this substantial mosque-looking building but with the curious Yenidze written around the top. The helpful stadtmuseum later informed us that this was a cigarette factory masquerading as a mosque since it was illegal to have chimneys so close to all the enlightenment palaces nearby. A chimney disguised as a minaret though was completely acceptable.

Arriving in the centre of Dresden we were confronted with these imposing but sombre-looking palaces, Cathedrals, and civil buildings. 

The blackened facades were not, as I initially thought, the result of the firestorm created by WW2 allied bombing, but actually the stone used blackens over time. This did have the effect of making all the originally built or early post-1945 reconstructions look black while the later additions have not had time to blacken yet. 

Since we had finally reached the former GDR, communist east Germany, the reconstruction of Dresden after the war took a very different course to the modern hustle and bustle of cities like Nuremberg or Munich. Many of the larger historic buildings in the centre have been rebuilt but the public spaces have been decimated to look like mass squares and boulevards. This gives Dresden the nickname as the city with palaces but no aristocrats: grand and yet empty.

Walking from the waterfront to our first museum of the day we stumbled across the Furstenzug. This impressive artwork was originally a painting of the history of the Saxon house of Wettin from its 8oo year anniversary in 1889. However, the effect of rain meant that it was replaced by tiles making it the largest ceramic tiled artwork in the world.

In the Dresden stadtmuseum we came across this little gem: one of many grandiose plans for the city after the war during reconstruction. This particular plan was to construct a massive 20m by 12m walkway-park around the centre of the old town which would be left in ruins. 

After another museum and a bit of wandering and food we opted to head out of the city and begin our drive towards Leipzig. Wandering by the Zwinger, an enlightenment palace gardens, we came across this stout looking building. These concrete-brutalist structures with their one way copper windows look out of place in many of the eastern European cities they sprung up in, but the presence of one so close to the aesthetic centre of Dresden was a particular culture shock.