A day in Dresden, Germany

A day in Dresden, Germany

Hello everyone! Today I am going to talk to you about Dresden. We visited the city in just a day, an express visit, but it surprised us for the better. We were in "Dresden" because it was really nearby to our first destination from the trip: the Natural Park called Bohemian Switzerland in the Czech Republic, which I already have a post about in this blog where I am quite specific.

Focusing now on Dresden, I have to say that my travel buddies and I thought that this German city was smaller than it was in reality. In Dresden, there are so many special buildings, surprising constructions in every corner, and the city in itself gives an impression of order and cleanness. It is quite big but you could say that all of the tourist attractions are fairly concentrated in the old district, in Altstadt.

My first piece of advice for visiting this city is that you find someone that can give you a free tour. Thus, your tour guide will tell you in detail the history and the facts of each of the buildings, churches and palaces in the city centre. The attractions that we liked the most were:

1. Frauenkirche.

It is a symbol of Dresden and this church is located in one of the prettiest squares in the city. The church is the main feature of the square, since it stands out due to its beautiful and original architecture. For me, it is one of the prettiest churches that I have seen in the whole of Europe. Also, the square where it is located is surrounded by really well taken care of buildings in different pastel colours. If this wasn't enough, in this square and the surrounding streets there were musicians, opera singings or musicians playing an instrument, which gave a magical touch to the area.

2. Semper Opera

The front of the opera is almost as impressive as Frauenkirche. All the buildings in Dresden have the same architectural style, which gives a sense of harmony to the city. It is really famous as here they show very famous operas such as those from Wagner or Strauss. In comparison with the one from Vienna, the good thing that it has is that there are not people dressed up as Mozart who harass you in the street trying to sell you tickets for that days show. This a point in favour for the Semper Opera.

3. The River Elba

It crosses the city and divides it into two. The old zone and the new one. As there is a river, there are bridges, which I recommend going on to see all the old buildings in the area from a distance. When we were there, the bridge areas were full of renovations (it reminded us of Bratislava) so they lost a bit of their charm but it is still worth seeing. Even though from here you can also appreciate the importance of the Elba river, the best version is when you past through places full of nature, such as Lohmen in Germany, an hours drive away from here, and not through big cities.

4. The Zwinger Palace.

You definitely cannot miss out on this baroque style palace which is also in the old quarter. Inside you will find several interesting exhibitions. For example, when we went there, there was an exposition of an porcelain object collection. There are several entrances to access the different parts of the palace. In the inside you can find gardens with arabesques and fountains, as well as tourists going from here to there. The prettiest thing about the palace is its clock, which you can see from the highest "terraces" of the architectural complex. The clock is very big and elegant, in a gold color. Inside the building that presides you can find a cafe-restaurant which has chandeliers and everything is decorated exquisietely. They definitely didn't cheap out. In the winter, they have gloves available to protect you from the cold whilst you have a coffee. From here, you can go down to the palace gardens. You definitely have to visit them. For me, it is the best thing about Dresden. Here, I will leave you a couple of photos.

In addition to these tourist buildings, which are the ones that you have to see no matter what, we also focused on some small things that caught our attention in the city.

For example, walking through the city, we came across a square called Striezelmarkt which is right in the centre. Despite it being the start of September, we realised that this square was opposed to being the host of the Christmas Market, in effect. I am a big fan of Christmas markets, as you can see from previous posts. As for the one in Dresden, I wish that it was nearer because in the photos it looked incredible. I will go another time.

They also had an exhibition right in the centre of Dresden, which consisted of testimonies of people who had refused, or on the contrary, accepted to work and did labour for the secret service for the Eastern bloc countries.

To eat

To eat, as we were quite tight on time, we just went on TripAdvisor, read a couple of opinions and finally went to L'Osteria which is a franchise, though we didn't know that at the time. It is an Italian restaurant which is really good, with the biggest pizza I had ever seen. It isn't expensive in general, except for water, which costed us 5 euros. For dessert, tiramisu. It looked really good.

Parking

Parking on Saturdays and Sundays are free, even though on certain websites it says the opposite. We park in the street where the orthodox church is situated, if you have time you can go and look at it as it is very worth seeing. Near to here, there is also the train station which is very big and it has a very elegant window.

As a conclusion, my advice is that you spend at least a night in Dresden, because we wanted to stay there for longer. It is ideal for architecture lovers and I think that the best time to visit there is the end of summer, when it is not too hot and there are not too many tourists. In addition to that, it is a strategic area as by getting a train you can visit really important cities like Leipzig, or if you have a bit more time, you can go towards Prague, and of course, visit the natural parks in the outskirts of Dresden.

And that is the post for today. I hope that you have enjoyed it, that you have discovered new places and I will see you all tomorrow. Thank you once again for reading.

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