Dresden - I'll have the Oxen...

I’m sitting on the train travelling at 226 kph from Vienna to Munich which is a 5 hour trip and I’m listening to Antony & the Johnsons.  Thank the gods for train travel, it really gives you a chance to just stop, relax and reflect….

We left Berlin very early in the morning, so we were up at 5am to catch the train to Dresden.  Upon arriving at Dresden we considered catching a taxi to the hotel, until we looked up and saw that it was only a five minute walk from the train station! Sometimes it pays to look up.

As we arrived at the hotel around 9.30am, it was too early to check in, so we dropped off our bags and took off into the city of Dresden.  We walked to the Alt Markt (Old Market) to Kreuzkirche, a church from the 13^th century. We then checked out the Christmas market in the Old Market square, which was a rather large market as such things go.

Now I know it might come as a surprise that we would visit another Christmas Market ;-P , but each of these markets are different in their own way and are really very beautiful.  For example, Berlin markets were very much about wurst, chocolate coated fruit, gluhwein, crapes and nuts; with the latter three items being pretty universal to any market. In Dresden, the food changed to include pasta, oxen and roasted meats and roasted apples. While in Prague, it was spiced potatoes, chicken skewers, roasted hams, Trdelník (a wood fired sweet pastry), honeyed wines and mead.  In Vienna, the markets are full of potato pastas, doughnuts, fruit wines (apple & cherry) and chocolates, but wurst is very rare to find.  Although I now understand where the American term “wiener” sausage comes from; it’s the Vienna sausage, a long, thin finely minced pork sausage like a hotdog (the difference being that the Vienna sausage has real meat in them).

Getting back to Dresden, we then walked to Frauenkirche, a stunning 18^th century church, then on to another market and the banks of the Elbe River where we checked out Katholische Hofkirche, a 17^th century church… There are a LOT of churches in Dresden!

We then wandered on to Alaustrasse which is a little like Brunswick St in Melbourne, but doesn’t really kick off until late arvo, as most things were closed when we were there. So we caught the tram back to the Alt Markt where we ate the spit roasted oxen in rolls. It was so good, we had seconds!!

We then checked into the hotel which was a very nice room, can highly recommend the Pullman chain of hotels, the shower is a very large glass cube in the middle of the room with an amazing shower head…so very good after an icy cold day! On the down side we have a very average dinner in the hotel, so I would suggest eating elsewhere in Dresden.

Next morning we only had a short time in Dresden before having to move on to Prague, so we ate a very good breakfast at the hotel, walked back through the old city, stopped at the spit roasted oxen again (it was that good!), back to the hotel and checked out. 

Then it was a train to Prague….. 

"Let the mind be enlarged to the grandeur of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness of the mind." - Francis Bacon