Postcards from Dresden
In mid-June Claudia and I flew to Germany to spend two and half weeks visiting her family and friends. We spent most of the time in her hometown of Dresden, the capitol of Saxony in eastern Germany.
This was my seventh time visiting Dresden with Claudia, and I think that every time I visit I appreciate more and more what a beautiful city it is – not only the stunning Baroque architecture of the old town but also the many city parks, museums, and plethora of public spaces. It helps too that her family knows all the best biergartens, vineyards, and restaurants to take us to!
The Hofkirche and the lights of Dresden reflect in the Elbe River at dusk in June.
The Hofkirche was commissioned by Augustus III and built in the 17th Century as a Catholic church at the same time that the nearby Frauenkirche was being built as a Protestant church. The church was badly damaged in February 1945 during the bombing of Dresden in the Second World War, but restored by the year 1962 by the East German government.
Sunset, dusk, and twilight photos of the spectacular Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany.
This Baroque church was built in the 18th Century as a sign of the will of the citizens of Dresden to remain Protestant after their ruler had converted to Catholicism. It was destroyed (along with much of Dresden) in the Allied firebombing of Dresden towards the end of World War II in 1945. The remaining ruins were left for nearly 50 years as a war memorial, but following the reunification of Germany the church was rebuilt from 1994 to 2005. About 4,000 original stone blocks were salvaged and reused in the reconstruction; these older stones are covered with a darker patina, due to fire damage and weathering. Read more about the history and reconstruction of the Frauenkirche here.
Overlooking a portion of the Sandstone Mountains, or Sächsische Schweiz, in eastern Germany.
One day we joined Claudia's dad Gundolf and his friends on a day trip to the Sandstone Mountains near Dresden. While they climbed various routes, we scrambed up a nearby peak. These unique mountains are kind of like an alternate-universe forested version of the Utah canyonlands! The vertical sandstone walls here have been a hotbed of climbing culture for many decades; some of the "clean" climbing techniques developed here were even exported to Yosemite back in the heyday of early climbing there.
Gundolf Schulz climbing in the Sandstone Mountains.
Someone's getting a little tipsy at a vineyard above Dresden, Germany.
In addition to our time in Dresden we also had a fun visit with Claudia's sister's family in Braunschweig to the north and her friends in her old college town of Freiburg im Breisgau in the south of Germany.
