July 1 - July 18 Germany trip report

[ronaldnelson]

Hi Tufbuf,
Yes our travel agent put together our pre Disney, as we wanted to see as much of Germany as possible since we were over here. As for my camera, I use a Nikkon D7100 with the Apperature app on my apple computer. Definitely come to Berlin if you are travelling this way as it is amazing

 

[ronaldnelson]

Well this morning we headed down from Berlin to Dresden which is roughly 170km, which took just about 2 hours. The drive down reminded me a lot of driving from Revelstoke to Salmon Arm in British Columbia with a lot of trees and pasture the drive didn't seem that long as i was busy talking with the driver and looking at all the scenery.

 

[ronaldnelson]

When we started driving into Dresden i didn't think i would be blown away the way I was as coming from Berlin with history and architecture but Dresden is so quaint and the building are magnificent where Berlin was typical city structures. we first went to Pillnitz Castle which is on the East end of Dresden then made our way down into the town of Dresden itself. we ate our first "German" style lunch, Dresden Sausage with sauerkraut and potatoes and it was quite delicious. this is where we made our first difference that caught us off guard compared to back home, that is having to pay to use the bathrooms. when you have no change as you through it into the suit case as it is bulky and annoying and your wife really has to go but the bathroom door won't open until you put 0.50 Euro coin in makes for an interesting situation, but it all worked out.

 

[ronaldnelson]

more from the castle

 

[ronaldnelson]

After the castle we went to the highest point on one hill to look over the town of Dresden and wow, you could see most of the land marks and Churches as you can see

 

[DDuck4Life]

WOW those are some spectacular views!!

 

[ronaldnelson]

We then headed into the downtown of Dresden, this is where i could not sit still all the beautiful churches and land marks are just amazing then we stopped at the Opera House, Museum of Art, The Palace, and the Catholic Church. The Palace is actually the Dresden museum which you can see ancient artifacts and sculptures as well as history (jousting armour etc) we even got to see a 42 karat diamond (the wife got that look in her eye ha ha ha) but unfortunately they do not allow you to take pictures but if you are in Dresden it is a must see. we had a very busy afternoon seeing everything but i am still in awe of everything and unfortunately we only have a half a day in Dresden tomorrow then head to Nuremberg, i could definitely stay here a bit longer.

 

[tufbuf]

Everything is jaw-dropping beautiful!!! Thanks for sharing!

 

[ronaldnelson]

we were able to tour the opera house and here are some pics

 

[ronaldnelson]

these were 3 castles we past driving into town

 

[ronaldnelson]

we are staying at the Hotel Suitess which is a beautiful hotel that is located in the square right beside The Palace and the Opera, very spacious as we have a 2 level room with full kitchen upstairs and beds and bath on the bottom floor. it is perfect location as there are a lot of different places to eat and pubs. the only flow is that what they consider air conditioning is a little plug in unit that can not keep the floor cool and all of us are sweating like crazy even with trying to keep the windows open for the little breeze that their is, saying this i don't think i will be sleeping to much tonight as it is so hot. Today was cool as Thunder storms came through Dresden and Berlin last night which made things cool this morning which was nice but this afternoon once the clouds left and the sun came out once again it became quite hot, not that it deterred the tour but now that we are trying to rest and cool off it is not happening. if you can bare the heat and don't mind this would be a perfect hotel for you but for us air conditioning like we had in Berlin was perfect, but as they say can't have everything so we will make the best of it tonight as we are off to Nuremberg tomorrow.
have a great night everyone, time to go to bed

 

[ronaldnelson]

few random pics of Dresden

 

[carpenta]

Beautiful pictures...Thank you. As you will find a lot of Europeans consider air conditioning a "western thing". They seem to prefer sleeping with the windows open. Our hotel in Munich did not have much AC and even though I asked about it we sweated for two nights. Dresden was firebombed during WWII and most of the city was decimated. The Germans really are amazing how fast they rebuilt after that devastating war. When you have free time in Heidelberg you may want to consider a trip to the summer palace located outside the city and can be reached by city bus easily. We did it on our free time and the tour was one of our favorites. Looking forward to your next update.

 

[ronaldnelson]

Hi Carpenta,
we will definitely try to do the summer palace when we are in Heidelburg, well even though the hotel is very accommodating with being very spacious and clean we decided to open all the windows which there was a nice cool breeze that started to come in around 12am, but then we got the noise of everyone having a great time down below which was neat to see during supper but at 1am i felt like yelling "go to bed" ha ha ha. i think we all got to bed around 1:30am-2:00am with the nice cool breeze through the window i thought, oh thank you i can now get some sleep, which i did. unfortunately outside the hotel they started doing something at 5am which caused a lot of noise and once i am up, i can't get back to sleep. and that beautiful church i raved about, every hour the bells seem to go off. so my advice is unless you want to party with everyone down below and stay up most of the night i would not recommend staying here. maybe if it was just the wife and i we would have went down and drank little more but with the kids it was not a wise choice, but who knew. it is just going to be a long day with all of us being so tired but we can have a nap on our 4hr trip to Nurenburg this afternoon. looks like it is going to be another beautiful hot day as it is supposed to get up to +34 and we are doing a 2hr walking tour and another museum, i do love their museums here they are amazing, and we made sure we have enough change for the washrooms ha ha ha.

thank you again for all your advice it is very helpful
Ron

 

[carpenta]

I just heard on the news here in the U.S. and Germany has set a new record on recorded temps yesterday. Sorry to hear of your AC problems but give a second thought of drinking more BEER (lol). The castle you will be staying at with ABD does not have AC but fans. No loud noises there. The view is amazing. We just returned from Yellowstone and the Grand Teton national parks and it was in the mid 90's and crazy weather there. huge wildfires also. God is playing tricks on us I suspect. I agree with you the sausage is wonderful as well as the mustards. At least the museums are air conditioned. Germany was a nice surprise for us how much amazing public art and buildings are still standing hundreds of years where here in the west we tend to build buildings to last 30 years or so. In France they charge for the washroom and after you pay then they hand you the toilet paper. I have been in a few "public" restrooms and after that experience I willingly fork over the euro to enjoy a half way clean toilet. Good luck with the weather.

 

[Cousin Orville]

Thanks for posting all the great photos. I'm enjoying following along. Sorry to hear it's been so hot. I remember taking a train from Berlin back to the Disney Magic in 2010. It was blazing hot! Of course there was no A/C. I remember it being an unusual heat wave at the time, too.

 

[aggiemomx3]

I'm following along and loving the reports and the pictures. My family is scheduled to take the trip to Germany next year. Getting some great ideas for some pre-days.

 

[DDuck4Life]

That must be brutal with no A/C. not sure how I would survive. Would need some ear plugs and a fan for that hotel room, would probably have to go out and buy a fan to sleep. Hope the heat gets better and you'll actually be able to cool off in your future hotel rooms.

 

[ronaldnelson]

Well this morning we all woke up tired and crabby as none of us really got any sleep between the no air conditioning and the people partying below. i thought i would be fighting with everyone today but when we met up with our guide Katerina and she started taking us through the Lutheran Church, Catholic Church, Zwinger, Green Vault, and then showing us the biggest porcelain piece in the world there was no sleeping for any of us. we did take a couple of pics inside the Lutheran Church but were asked to put the cameras away, but the Catholic Church we were allowed to take pictures. The first pic is the Lutheran church after it was bombed and the picture after shows how they restored the church using old bricks (the black ones) and new ones. Inside the churches were so magnificent it is hard to put into words. we then moved to the largest porcelain piece in the world which is a mural of all the old rulers made out of Porcelain tiles which is amazing to look at. and then ended with the war museum which we didn't go into as they had mentioned we would need 1/2 a day to go through and we were just about to make our way down to Nuremberg. on our way out we stopped at a beer distillery from the 1800's to have lunch and with our guides help we started ordering "German" dishes such as Curryworst and other Sausage meals all i can say is wow i didn't think Sausage could taste so good, now i am hooked.

 

[ronaldnelson]

the catholic church