Welcome to Dresden, Now Leave

This morning I hopped a two-hour train from Prague to Dresden, Germany. As some of you may know, my original plan was to see Krakow, Poland before I made my way to Prague to see Brian. But, seeing as my plans were always flexible, Brian suggested that I come a weekend earlier so he could host another guest the following weekend. Fine with me, I thought, I’ll skip Krakow and add a few destinations in Germany to my plan.

With two weeks before Rich shows up, I figured a day in Dresden, a few in Berlin, and a few in some place between Berlin and Paris, and I’d have seen some cool stuff and replaced one great city with another. Well, I’m hear to tell you that Dresden could maybe replace a destination like Cleveland, Ohio but it ain’t got nothing on the rest of my destinations.

Those of you history buffs or Kurt Vonnegut fans may already know what put Dresden on the map for the average American. Over a period of about three days in February of 1945, with intentions that are still unclear at this time, under the urging of Winston Churchill the USAAF firebombed Dresden to decrease the flow of materiel, interrupt communications, and demoralize the German populace. On that sad day, nine out of ten buildings in the center of Dresden were burnt to the ground. And with those buildings came down on the heads of between 35,000 and 100,000 civilians.

As a result, Dresden is not quite the ancient city that it used to be. A considerable amount of money has been put into restoring this town into the maginificent example of Baroque architecture that it was before the war. And in some places they have been successful. There remain some beautiful buildings that were untouched by the bombing and some reconstructed buildings that inspire awe in their own right. But there are many more hastily constructed apartments and business buildings than the finer examples of architecture. So, this town is quite an architectural let-down after Prague and Budapest.

But what doesn’t exist in this city, are any goddamn internet terminals! I came here as a last-minute idea at Brian’s suggestion and my own familiarity with the part it played in the war. Brian suggested that I stay only one day and he was dead-on. Without a guide book, I was unable (until just five minutes ago–far too late) to find out what I should see. It took me five hours to find one of the two internet cafes that exist in this town of 800,000. And it took two hours to find the hostel that I’m staying in which has the charm of a hospital and the soul of a strip mall. I can’t wait to get out of here.

I feel sorry that this was my only experience with this town. I now know for my nighttime ‘net access that there are a day’s worth of sites here. But there are a lot more than that in Berlin and the always attractive Alsace-Lorraine area of France beckons before I unite with Rich. So long, Dresden. Until we meet again…