Thursday, 3 October. We were up at 7:00. Today was our 60th wedding anniversary. It was also a public holiday, the Day of German Unity, celebrating the reunification of Germany in 1990. We thought it was very nice of the Germans to make our anniversary a holiday. At 8:30 we went to a shipboard lecture featuring local residents comparing their lives before and after reunification. However, all of them were from families that had independent businesses during that time, so there experiences were not typical.

At 9:30 our group left on a two-hour walking tour of old Dresden. Really though, what we saw was not old at all. Dresden has a long history (since 1356) as the capital and royal residence of the Electors and Kings of Saxony, who for centuries lavished the city with cultural and artistic projects. The city was long recognized as a leading European center of art, classical music, culture, science, and architecture. Then in February 1945 the center of Dresden (15 square miles) was utterly destroyed in a series of air raids. There has since been much controversy over the justification for such a drastic action when the Germans were already defeated at the time.

Under early Russian occupation, much of the rubble was cleared, cleaned and preserved using unpaid volunteer workers, almost entirely women and children since few men were left in the city. Later, when the German Democratic Republic (GDR) began reconstruction, the original stones were used to the maximum extent possible. The GDR rebuilt many important historic buildings (e.g., Semper Opera House (1985), the Zwinger Palace (1951-64)). However, the ruins of some churches, royal buildings and palaces were razed instead of being repaired, and large areas of the city were rebuilt in the soviet realist style. Reconstruction has continued since reunification. Most notably, the Frauenkirche was carefully restored over seven years (1998-2005), again using many of the original stones.

Our walking tour took us about half a mile along the Elbe to the Neumarkt (New Market), site of the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady). The original Catholic church here was built in the 11th century. That church was torn down in 1727 and replaced by a larger Lutheran church in 1743. That was the church destroyed in 1945 and just reopened in 2005.

Also on Neumarkt we saw the reconstruction (1960) of the 16th century Royal Mews (stables). In 1876 the building was remodeled and renamed the Johanneum, the name is now bears. Today it houses the Dresden Transport Museum.  

Procession on Princes in procelain

Semperoper & King John statue

We continued on past the Castle and the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Trinity (1751, restored in the 1980s) and crossed over to Theater Platz, site of the Semperoper opera house (1878, reconstructed 1985). Major works by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss had their premiere here. Also on Theater Platz is one wing of the Zwinger Palace housing the Old Masters Gallery.

 

Zwinger Palace Courtyard

Our group left the Zwinger about 11:00 and walked over to the Royal Palace. Like other Dresden landmarks, the Palace was largely destroyed in 1945. Major reconstruction finally started in 1985 and was mostly completed in 2006 (the city's 800th anniversary). Some of the original interior has been restored, but not all. However, the unique collections of the elector Frederic Augustus I (Augustus the Strong) have been preserved and are displayed in a complex of museums.

As the group dispersed, Jutta gave us tickets that included all the Palace's museums, but the tickets for the historic Green Vault were for a specific time to prevent overcrowding. Our tickets were for 3:00, so we decided to wait until we came back to see some of the other museums, too. On our way back to the ship, we explored Neumarkt more thoroughly.


We saw that reconstruction is continuing, with another major building slated for rebuilding in what is now a big hole. We also went into the Frauenkirche to see the interior. We wandered through Bruhl's Park and Terrace before finding our way to the street along the river and back to our ship.

We went onboard just at noon. We found a bottle of champagne in our room with a note from the crew wishing us a happy anniversary. On our way to lunch at 12:30, we dropped the bottle off at the bar to be chilled for dinner.

At 2:00 we took the GCT shuttle bus back to the Royal Palace. That gave us time to see some of the other museums before going to the historical Green Vault for our 3:00 appointment. The Green Vault is foremost among the Palace museums. In fact, there are two distinct Green Vaults. The historic Green Vault as a private treasure chamber dates back to 1547. But in 1773 Augustus the Strong refurbished and enlarged that vault into a magnificent public museum, adding many of his crown treasures. Severely damaged in the 1945 bombing, the historic Green Vault, restored to its 1773 splendor, reopened in 2006. It includes the entire original collection of about 3,000 pieces, including bronze statues and works of art in silver, gold, amber and ivory. In addition, during the restoration of the Palace, a New Green Vault was added (2004) to display another 1,100 items, mostly from the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Armory Ottoman tent in Turkish Chamber

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