The tram from Dresden Hbf was just a few stops from my hotel, which was a 2-minute walk from the tram stop. The Gewandhaus Hotel is an elegant building dating from the early 18th c. The room is large and well-furnished and even has an oversized soaking tub, which is a first. After checking email and looking at a few maps, I took an orientation walk around the Altstadt before crossing the Elbe to the Neustadt. I also planned a visit tomorrow late afternoon to the Vesper choral service at the Kreutzkirche around the corner and was also able to grab one of few tickets to see Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro tomorrow evening at the renowned Semper Opera.

At the Central Station, I chatted with a young Canadian woman at the information center. She suggested that I visit some nearby vineyards where the excellent Grauburgunders are made and she showed me how to get there by public transit and circled the areas.

Since I booked a walking tour tomorrow, I’ll hold off on descriptions until then; however, my impression of the city is hugely positive, especially when one considers that Dresden was utterly destroyed by thousands of US and British bombers in early February of 1945. The bombing was designed to create a firestorm which killed up to 150,000, mostly civilians. The Elbe River was boiling and the maelstrom even permeated the bomb shelters, literally melting the occupants. You can read about the gruesome details online. The fact that most of the city was meticulously rebuilt after German reunification is itself a miracle. The former DDR had neither the money nor the desire to rebuild this magnificent Baroque jewel. The last photo is of the Semper Opera, which I mentioned. The others are a prelude to tomorrow’s deeper dive.

Today the weather turned cooler and it began raining as I rode the tram to an outlying suburb where some of the vineyards are located. Since I hadn’t done any advance planning, I couldn’t figure out how to get to the hilltop vineyards. I’ll try to figure that out later. I returned to the Altstadt and wandered around before returning to the hotel to figure out dinner plans.