Dresden – last part (hopefully)

Tired of Dresden? Want to see some other places we saw on the way? No worries, that’s the last post on this wonderful city for now. I just wanted to share some more pictures from there and marvel at its beauty once again.

I can’t believe, looking at it, that Dresden was totally destroyed after WWII and most of the places we saw were reopened within the last 30-40 years! We could also see some work still in progress in various places.

I feel that I have to get back to Dresden one day. As always, we probably haven’t seen half of the things there are to see (is it ever possible to see everything?). But there are two that I want to see really bad. These are:

-         PfundsMolkerei – a milk store which is in the Guiness Book as the most beautiful milkstore in the world

-         Hofder Elemente in Kunsthofpassage – a blue house that plays a kind of game with elements, water in particular. The house that plays music.

It was a conscious decision to resign from seeing Pfunds Molkerei. We were all really tired. But I can’t forgive myself that I FORGOT about the blue house! I did remember about it till some point and then… poof! It slipped my mind… Can you believe it?

Oh, and I want to tell you about something delicious I ate in Dresden. Grilled Camembert with pineapple and cranberries at Bistro Café am Schloß. Yummy!

Ok, that’s it for Dresden. Next time we’re moving south east.

One word. Zwinger.

There’s not much I can say about Zwinger. Ohhhh’s and wow’s weren’t enough to describe the intensity of our delight with the place. I so wanted to stay there. Artur was over the moon with all the fountains. I loved the architecture, the sculptures, the details. There were lots of people inside and yet you couldn’t feel that.

The Zwinger is a palace. Or rather used to be. Now it serves as a museum complex. There are four different exhibits there – Old Masters Picture Gallery, the Dresden Porcellain Collection, the Armory and the Royal Cabinet of Mathematical and Physical Instruments. And a great place to spend a second during a busy day and simply rest (yup, despite the amount of people there!).

I hope you’ll enjoy the pictures I took there. And at least via them you’ll be able to get the ambience of that place.

The tale of two churches

When you look at Dresden from Hausmannsturm, you can see two quite distinctive landmarks. Two churches. One Catholic, being right next to the Residenzschloß. One Lutheran, visible in the near distance. I know it’s nothing special that one town or one city has more than one church. But what amazed me was their sizes. Both are monumental, spectacular. Both are visible, clearly visible from a distance.

The first one - The Katholische Hofkirche, i.e. the Catholic Church of the Royal Court of Saxony, since 1980 aka Kathedrale Sanctissinae Trinitatis or Cathedral of the Holy Trinity.

The second one – The Dresden Frauenkirche, i.e. the Church of Our Lady.

One of them was ordered by the royal family, the other was built at the will of the citizens of Dresden. Why such a dichotomy?

Frederich Augustus II, Elector of Saxony. Augustus the Strong, King of Poland. Lutheran Dresden and Catholic Poland. 18^th century Europe.

At some point during his reign, Frederich Augustus II decided that he’d love to become the King of Poland. However, one of the musts for all Polish kings was to be Catholic. Poor Frederich decided that no matter what, he’d make his dream come true. Having said that, he converted to Catholicism, which gave him the right to gain Polish crown. The majority of people in Dresden, however, still remained Protestant. That’s why the town had no Catholic church of real importance. To mark his faith conversion, Frederich ordered the building of the Hofkirche, the Roman Catholic Cathedral, to establish a sign of Roman Catholic religious importance in Dresden. A church that is connected with the Residenzschloß by a special passage, a kind of a bridge with walls and a roof,  to protect the royal family from walking in the streets when they wanted to get to the church.

When the people of Dresden found out about that, they felt betrayed. If their Elector was building a Catholic cathedral in their Protestant town, they’re going to show him what the power of population means. They order the building of the Frauenkirche, which is said to be the greatest cupola building in Central and Northern Europe. The interiors reminded us of the Stockholm Opera House. Definitely not what I could associate with a church, no matter if Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or any other. A huge WOW!

Hofkirche

Frauenkirche

Martin Luther's monument at Neumarkt Square.                                                                                                                  The Altar inside.

On the left you can see part of the Frauenkirche.