Dresden with Paul and Betty Ann

After leaving Vienna, we had our longest train ride of all, all the way to Dresden, which took almost seven hours. Of course, we had Béla on the train to entertain us.
We also shared the compartment most of the way with an older Czech woman who spoke perfect German, as the region in which she lived was part of Germany until the end of the war, when she was about 13. I talked to her a lot, and translated what I could. She spoke some English as well, but wasn't so confident. She had a lot of interesting and incredibly sad stories about the time after the war, when the region suddenly became part of Czechoslovakia. The new government took everything from the former German citizens who lived there - property, money, possessions, and many of them fled to Germany, where things weren't much better. Her family stayed, and she learned Czech then, though she remembered having to draw pictures on the ground with a stick when she didn't know the word for something. Some of her stories were so depressing that I ended up crying while translating them for the others. She had been in Vienna visiting her son who has been working there for years, after her dog of 16 years died three weeks before. They wanted her to visit to get her mind off it, but she was still sad thinking about coming home to an empty house, without the dog. This story made me cry too...
Béla wasn't sad though, and slept well most of the way, whether in the sling, in someone's arms, or on someone's lap, as is the case here.
Once we got to Dresden, it wasn't far to get to our hotel. We were all a bit tired though, and didn't feel like going out to explore the city too much that night. Luckily, there was a grocery store nearby where we could buy food for breakfast, and there was a brewery right next door, with a restaurant in it. There we were able to order one of the "beer lanterns", which came in either 3 litres or 5 litres. Here are Paul and Betty Ann with the 3 litre variety.

The food was good too, and they had a special seasonal menu for fall, with lots of game. We were able to try rabbit, deer, and wild boar. Béla also enjoyed the restaurant.
It was a pretty cool place, and while it wasn't functioning as a brewery anymore, it had a lot of the old equipment still in place. This giant copper dome was over what was now the bar.
The beer was so good that we got a second beer lantern, and then we drank some more over cards at the room afterward. As such, breakfast was a little later than it might have been, but we all ate well.
After breakfast, we headed out to explore the city. After some coffee and tea en route, we all needed to find a toilet. The tourist map had public toilets marked on it, so we ended up at this little coin-operated toilet, which automatically cleaned itself between uses. It was pretty cool, but took a while as we had to go one at a time, with about a minute between us for the automatic cleaning cycle.
Then we did a little foot tour of the city, seeing all the major sites, including the Frauenkirche, which was destroyed in WWII, and recently rebuilt in all its former glory.
We then walked along the river Elbe, behind the Academy of Arts...
...along the fortified wall, the drainage area of which can be seen here.
This brought us to the cathedral which is attached to the palace.
The church was interesting enough in its own right, but our visit was made necessary by Béla's hunger. I wasn't completely sure that it was okay to breastfeed in a church that's open to the public as a tourist attraction, but it was too cold to sit outside on a bench comfortably, so I went for it.

In the meantime, Paul and Betty Ann had a good luck around the church, checking out the incredibly ornate pulpit, among other things.
Béla found the setting so relaxing that he decided to have a GIANT poop. Unfortunately the bathrooms were temporarily closed to the public, and they didn't have a changing table anywhere else. The woman at the information desk suggested that I try the palace across the way, but it was already starting to leak through his clothes, so we decided to change him right on the pew. As such, Béla ended up stark naked in the cathedral, but no one objected (or perhaps they just didn't notice).

Just around the corner from the cathedral is a long wall with thousands of tiles from the porcelain manufacturer in Meißen, the nearby city in which porcelain was first made in Europe. I'd seen this mosaic before, with a row of noble men on horses, and at that point I got the fact that it was a princely lineage, but it didn't really mean that much. However, in the meantime, I've read a series of historical fiction (in German) which is set in this area of Germany in the 12th Century, and I actually knew who a few of the noblemen at the beginning of the procession were, at least as characters in the book. (I was actually a bit bummed after I read all the names, as at the point I am in the series, after the third book, it's not clear which one of the Markgraf's sons will succeed him, but now I know. The fourth book hasn't been published yet, but I can't wait.) In any case, I was pretty excited by the mural this time around.From there we headed on to the opera house (the Semperoper) and the Zwinger, a palace complex that now houses several museums. Outside there were lovely gardens of densely planted chrysanthemums.
Inside the courtyard, Jeremi posed as the king of Poland, looking as regal as he could. (The crown was added to the palace after the conquering of Poland.)
Some views around the stately courtyard...


Paul and Jeremi, imitating one of the goofy satyrs who are holding up the building.
There was also a carillon with ceramic bells, which plays complex tunes on the hour, or so I thought, but we were lucky enough to hear it at the quarter hour, at 2:15.
After leaving the Zwinger, we passed by the more modern arts centre in the centre of town, which has another historical mural on it, though this one is dating from the more recent communist East German period...
Before our train we had time for a late lunch, and after checking out what we thought was a goose restaurant (with very little goose on the menu), we opted instead for the Vietnamese restaurant across the square. It wasn't as traditionally German, but it was delicious, and everyone enjoyed it. Here's a look at Betty Ann's dish...
...and Paul's dish was decorated by a lovely little rose-shaped carrot.
After that it was time to head to the train station again, to end our trip with the final journey to Jena.