Wroclaw, Poland to Dresden, Germany

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

We left lovely Wroclaw and headed west on the modern highway, headed for the German border.  We reached Gorlitz, on the German side of the Neisse River, by mid-morning and spent some time wandering around this pretty city with an interesting history.  It is part of Silesia, an area that encompasses areas of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic; the intercultural mix is evident throughout the region.  Gorlitz was largely spared during World War II, but the postwar Potsdam Agreement placed the German-Polish border at the Neisse River, and split the city in two.  Shortly thereafter, Poland expelled all Germans from its country and resettled Poles who had been living in eastern areas of the country occupied by Russia in Silesia.  Currently, the border passage is seamless and the two halves of the city and the rest of the Silesian have re-established cultural, if not national, unity.

Back to Gorlitz, a small city, with historic and modern market squares, lots of interesting architecture, fortifications, and churches.  We enjoyed a walking tour there before continuing westward.  We made a brief stop in Bautzen, the cultural capital of the Sorbs (Wends), Germany’s only indigenous ethnic minority, where signage appears in both German and the Sorbs’ hybrid Polish-Czech tongue.

One more short hop, and we arrived in Dresden this afternoon.  Our spacious apartment is ideally situated, midway on a short block between the riverfront walk and the Frauenkirche – the heart of the city.   

We set out to get our bearings and walk a bit around this gorgeous city on the Elbe River; its monumentality reminds us of Vienna.  We stopped in the massively-domed Frauenkirche, with its round, light, airy, and highly decorated interior, and strolled past the Parade of Nobles, a mural depicting 700 years of Saxon history, painted on 24,000 Meissen porcelain tiles.  We capped the afternoon with a walk along the Bruhlsche Terrasse, the elevated riverfront promenade, once part of Dresden’s defensive ramparts, now referred to as the “Balcony of Europe.”  The views, both across the water to the new city and back into the old city center, were lovely, indeed.