Dresden

This is the largest of the Zwinger buildings, and the least ornate, although still including here, of course. :-)

This is of the same part of the Zwinger as in Picture 2, only I was standing much further back in this one.

I took this because I liked the carvings on the building, as well as the composition when taken from this perspective.

The current Zwinger Palace was constructed in 1710-1728 by Augustus the Strong, using the foundations of an old armory. It was originally a stable, or "Zwinger," not for horses, but for artillery, hence the name. Although mostly destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in 1945, it was reconstructed after the war and is now a major tourist attraction.

I saw this onion dome over the entrance to the Zwinger, and I just loved it. Therefore...here's the photo. :-) I haven't seen many onion domes in Germany, although in reality they're not too uncommon on churches.

The Residenzschloss is the City Hall for Dresden, and the Hofskirche (Church of the Holy Cross) is right next door (you can only see the rear of it here). The statue is cool, too, but ultimately I took this shot for the overall detail and complexity. It is, in its own way, beautiful.

Because Dresden is in Saxony (sorry for mistakes on earlier posts ;-)), this wall depicts the succession of Saxon sovereigns.

The original Frauenkirche was destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden in 1945, and the spectacular Baroque church was still being rebuilt when I visited it in 2005, being reopened shortly after I took this picture. The restoration wasn't begun until the early 1980s, but still it took a long time. Now, the church is standing again for all to see, and its so beautiful it's a little bit surreal. It's just not common to see anything new (kind of) that looks this good.

I've been informed by cats_dd that this is the Hauptbahnhof Nord stop, but more importantly, I took it because I like the way the world underneath the bridge is dark (but not so dark that you can't see shadow details like the bicycles), while the world outside is illuminated by comparison. The yellow paint on the tram and the street sign are nice touches, too.

Dresden used to have a fleet of Tatra T4D-MT trams (and still do, just not exclusively), not unlike the Tatra T3s used in Prague, but in recent years DVB, the Dresden transit authority, have been buying new articulated trams from Bombardier. I haven't ridden any of the new 12-axle TD12DD trams yet, but I have ridden these NGT8DDs, and they're great. They're quiet, smooth, quick, and obviously zero-emissions. In fact, I would venture to say that they should probably be models for future designs, as I've never ridden a better class of tram, although maybe I shouldn't be so enthusiastic without knowing how reliable they are. On the positive side, none of them broke down while I was riding them.

This was a very lucky shot, although not perfect. I had gotten on the train, and was regretting the fact that I didn't have the chance to catch this earlier, when it went by on the mainline when I was in the wrong part of Dresden to get a good angle on it (I only saw and heard the exhaust through the trees). Much to my amazement, my camera was already in my hands, and there it was, moving slowly enough for me to get this shot!!! It's an old DRG Class 50 2-10-0, repainted for DB, as after World War II DB didn't get rid of steam until 1978, and even after that the DR kept it, so today a lot of it has been preserved.

I first rode behind a DB 101 Class electric in 1998, on an Intercity service from Emmerich to Koln. That was a very memorable trip, and since then I've ridden behind a 101 on other occasions as well. They're very fast (for a locomotive as opposed to a trainset) being able to hit 220Km/h with little effort, although officially they only do 200Km/h in service with their 10-12 car Intercities, very powerful (the Class 103 is the only large German electric class to ever beat it), and just...well...good looking. The bright cherry red that DB uses for its Intercity equipment nowadays suits them especially well. Therefore, I figure I should use any excuse to put a picture of a 101 on my website, so here it is. I took this is Dresden Hauptbahnhof in 2005, where I was catching a Eurocity service to Prague. They cut the 101 off in Bad Schandau or Decin, if I'm not mistaken, replacing it with a CD Class 363.

This is, as far as I know, one of the long Bombardier trams in Dresden, making its stop at Hauptbahnhof. I don't know of hand whether this is an 8-axle or 12-axle unit, however, as the photo doesn't show the length or the number.

The most challenging part of rebuilding Dresden in the years following World War II was the Altmarkt, although this reconstruction is one of the most complete, as it was the most missed. This night shot of the clock tower was the only truly good shot I got of it on this visit, however.

For dinner, I went to the Freiberger Gasthaus, which I'm assuming is run by the Freiberger brauhaus, or vice versa. I was surprised when I scanned the photos that this shot wasn't blurred or unrealistically discolored, so I uploaded it.

This photo represents the first in a large number of photos I have in my backlog. I took it on a Christmas shopping trip to Dresden...........last year. I took this photo a few blocks from the Altmarkt, at the train station end of Pragerstrasse (for lack of a better description). It appears to be of a large foundation that no longer has a building over it....or maybe which was dug for a building never completed. The fact was that Communist governments such as East Germany's would often start things and never finish them. I note that this foundation/ruin appears to have something resembling garage doors into it, if you look back to the far end.

I don't really know what this means. It seems to be saying "Beautiful is Schiiner," or "Beautiful is SchBiier," according to Google Translate.

This is an odd place to start the film shots, I know, but it was the first good photo....sort of....that I found in my latest batch of shots from Dresden.....meaning late-2011!!! :-D This was actually a Christmas shopping trip, so it's roughly a year old already.