December 10
We arrived in Dresden early in the evening last night before dinner. For the second night I had my signature drink, and they've gotten better each time (a frozen mudslide). The night in the restaurant was "German Night" where all the food was traditional German fare and the staff sported traditional German outfits. Dinner was an hour early because at 7:30pm a shuttle was provided to the Dresden Christmas Market, the oldest one in Europe. We went and explored. Found my first signature mug with mulled wine and got a small traditional Santa memento. We opted to walk back which wasn't difficult, and was only about 15-20 minutes, but after all the steps at the Bastei earlier in the day it was a lot on my back.
We woke up to brisk mid-40's on Wednesday morning before our Panoramic Dresden Tour. We loaded up and spent the first 45 minutes or so driving around Dresden to get an overview of the city. Most interesting to me was the section where the more wealthy businessmen, going back hundreds of years, had built huge villas/mansions. Then we arrived to the Old Town and saw the Opera House and the "Party Palace." If you are not aware, during World War II Dresden was one of the most heavily bombed German cities and nearly the entire Old Town was reduced to rubble. So following the war it was rebuilt to the original blueprints so that today it still has that look from hundreds of years ago despite only actually being about 80 years old. We then went to the "Green Vault" inside the palace to see the many treasures of the King of Dresden dating back over six hundred years. We ended the tour at the Christmas Market where we'd gone last night, so the four of us walked to another smaller market - where of course we found more mulled wine (in a different cup!). Spent the afternoon relaxing and playing cards before another wonderful dinner. We'll sail up to Meissen for tomorrow's tour.
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