Berlin - Dresden - Prague - Munich

Berlin To Florence

A paucity of internet connections is the reason for a gap in our blog. The trip from Berlin to Prague was broken by a stop in Dresden. We had decided that to go to Dresden for the day was a waste of time and money and since our route took us near Dresden we did an umweg and entered Dresden. As we crossed a bridge into the altstadt the scene before us was breathtaking.

Die Frauenkirche destroyed when Dresden was firebombed in WWII but not by the bombs. It collapsed and all the stone was in a condition to be reused and the church was only rebuilt with the original stone.

From our horse drawn bus

Part of Augustus' palace

The Opera house with a statue of Augustus IV

Our bus!

 In the top right you can see the remnants of the communist influence in 

 Dresden alongside the beautiful stairs leading up to a view of the river.

 Prague

After a coffee and pannini and the tour of Dresden we drove on into Czech. It was as you can see a grey day, with mist but our trusty TomTom took us via the back roads to Prague (In Czech they have a toll road and we had no Korunu and only a few euros in coin) and while the route in Prague seemed to be a roundabout way it was necessary because of the one way and very narrow streets of the old city.

The Questenberk is a delightful hotel which is in an old palace up on the hill overlooking the Vltava river, a short way from the largest Castle in Europe.

After settling in we organized a reservation on a dinner boat cruise on the Vltava and we were to meet our guide for a short tour of the city in front of the famous 14thC clock in the centre of the old city on the other side of the river.

Walking down the hill from the hotel.

An Italianate palace on the Old wall

Another palace with its studded door

Our first view of the castle side of the Charles bridge

Detail of a statue on the Charles Bridge

Looking upstream at the Vltava. In the middle distance is a
low weir with a canal on the right hand side.

The city end of the bridge

St Margarita, part of a larger scene on
on the bridge

Looking back at the castle end of the bridge. The castle can be
be seen in the distance at the right

The decoration on this house is fantastic.

The Prague mechanical clock at the hour of 6pm, 

you can just see the open doors above the fantastic 

astronomical clock. There were mechanical 

images of saints that turned and nodded to the 

assembled crowd watching

The church overlooking the old town square in Prague

From our cruiser before dinner

We met a Norwegian family, Mother Andrina,
son Nothanial and grandmother Sneefrid.
This is Nothanial, who was almost 4.

We also me a group of touring American retirees, 4 men who do a lot of travelling together.  Nice bunch

A last look at the Night shore line of Prague.