We started off today by saying Auf Wiedersehen to Berlin, and hello to Dresden. Dresden, Germany was leveled near the end of WW2, and recently got rebuilt in the style of its old architecture. Dresden is what we call the breather of the trip. We took a small break from a lot of the heavy topics, and got to simply bask in the beauty of the city. The city is absolutely breathtaking to look at, and it really lives up to the architecture of fairy tales. Each building seemed as ancient as the earth itself. Due to the density of Dresden, our bus couldn’t enter the city proper, meaning that we walked a lot today. Upon our early arrival, we landed at the Palace Museum. While normally it is made up of three exhibits, a bomb threat from a day or two before (no worries–all taken care of before we arrived) closed down the third exhibit. My favorite piece, by far, was a bejeweled emerald so bright that my phone couldn’t even capture a photo of it. The other exhibits displayed opulent and gilded rooms full of evangelical murals. We stayed there for an hour and a half, exploring the museum and walking around the veritable palace which it was built in. While today was definitely a break from the Holocaust, I still saw the perennial scars from WW2 fighting, and I feel more connected to German history than I felt at the beginning of the day.
Around the middle of the day, we went to see a cathedral that was secretly built by the Elector of Saxony at the time. The building was actually destroyed by a fire and then by the Allied bombings in the Second World War. Really what this meant is that this Catholic cathedral in the midst of an atheist Eastern Germany was still the pride of the city. After this we were given a bit of free time to explore the city. This was the day to cleanse our palette since the Holocaust material we are covering is dense and deep. Josh and I used that time to walk along the Elbe River that Dresden encircles. The walk was extremely scenic. We saw affluent houses, “historic” buildings, and the bright sunny day hitting the grass and the people on top of said grass. Both sides of the Elbe River were full of beautiful houses, making you feel like you were living in a dream that you wish you never left. Afterwards, we met up again to see a concert in a castle; beautiful classical Mozart music filled the lungs of the proud building. This was an extremely special experience for me as I’ve never been able to go to a concert, much less a concert dedicated to one of my favorite classical composers. A delicious dinner followed this beautiful composition of art. We started off with tasty Bavarian pretzels, ate fried bologna, and finished it off with a warm crepe-like dessert. Safe to say, this was a very calming day of the trip. I really got to enjoy the architectural beauty that Dresden had to offer despite it being leveled just 80 years ago. One of the best days yet.
