New Road Trip thread ...

[Sailor]

Day 13
Koenigstein to Loebau [2291M to date]

Another of the mesas is the Bastei, some 600+ feet above the river and the site of an ancient castle (now long gone). It's a bit scary if, like me, you find heights a bit of a problem. Magnificent.










We went off from there to Loebau, a place we found by accident. We had seen a sticky-up building from the main road and went to investigate. It turned out to be the oldest extant cast iron observation tower in Europe (1854).



There's a pretty decent hotel close by with wide balconies to the rooms. We were happy to stay there for the night.

[mercutio]

there are some amazing places off the usual tourist routes

[Sailor]

there are some amazing places off the usual tourist routes

Indeed. "Let's see what's down here" became a common theme. It's how we found many of the hotels we ended up in. The 14th, for example, was part of a late 15th century town hall - and had been a hostelry since it was built.


Day 14
Loebau to Pulsnitz [2367M to date]

Germany's most easterly town, Goerlitz straddles the Neisse River. This side, Germany: that side, Poland, where it's named Zgorzelec.



The town escaped many of the ravages of war that nearby cities suffered - especially Dresden.



This is a shopping centre that's being restored to its art deco glory:-



And this is part of an organ built in 1703 in which 17 clusters of the shorter pipes are formed into little 'suns'.




It's not all pretty. There are quite a few remnants of the Soviet era that still need to be fixed up.




One curio we came across was this little sundial. We were actually looking for the 15deg meridian marker that shows the axis of central European time. We were nearly in the right place and thought we'd found the thing. I didn't realise the error until we got home. At least the sundial is much, much older than the marker, although nobody seemed to know exactly when it was put there.

[Sailor]

Day 15
Dresden

The trusty old Lude was given a day off. We'd decided to stay at the hotel for two nights and took the train into Dresden. Heavily damaged in WWII, the amount and quality of restoration is astonishing.






The Zwinger Palace is a must-see.





Apart from the scale of it, it has three major galleries. Porcelain occupies thousands of square metres. The Old Masters the same - Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Durer, Cranach etc etc. There's even a Raphael and a great El Greco. Photography strictly forbidden!

A much smaller exhibition is of old measuring and associated equipment. This is a sort of 18th century Enigma machine:-



We walked miles. Other forms of transport were available:-

[wurlycorner]

Who decides where you're going on that contraption?
That would be very disconcerting, pedalling forwards but travelling sideways...

[mercutio]

yeah i could imagine the farce if there was a lude gen filled one of those bikes

[Sailor]

The person with the saddle next to the box has the steering wheel. There's a proper steering rack, too (just visible).
I think the black socket in the middle of the frame is intended to take an umbrella/sunshade.
Should we get one for the next Japfest and join the drifters?

http://www.conferencebike.com/

http://www.hammacher.com/Product/Defaul ... fsku=78743

[Donald]

Are you heading north or making your way west again now? Shame the timing isn't right (or is it? ) as I'm in Berlin next weekend.

[Sailor]

Heading west, then northwest.

The timing is 2 weeks out: this is all retrospective. I failed to get the pictures onto Photobucket when en route, so have been posting them from home. The (almost) daily feed is to avoid sticking up a long, long post - and gives an impression of verisimilitude, even if that's quite unnecessary.

I've never been to Berlin. It's on my list. Let us know how you get on, please.

[Sailor]

Day 16
Pulsnitz to Eisenach [2573M to date]

Weimar is an historic town. Goethe, Schiller, Liszt, anybody?






It also has an Italian cafe near that offers extra large cups of coffee ...




But we went there primarily because it's where the Bauhaus movement started.




More modern than even that was a weird thing:-




Not far from Weimar is Buchenwald. We weren't sure if we wanted to visit or just felt we should. Talk about a mood-changer.



Every one of these pillars represents a concentration camp:-



This ruin completed the transition from depression and bafflement to anger.



Unbelievably, the SS built a zoo for a break from the booze and brothel.