Disappointing and Overwhelming

Sunday, Aug. 10, 2014--Dresden

I don't know why I expected more.  Maybe it was because I have heard all my life about how beautiful Dresden was before it was bombed and how the city was rebuilt after the war.  In my mind, I assumed that they rebuilt the "city."  Actually only a few of the older buildings have been rebuilt.  And of those, only the exteriors were reproduced.  The interiors tend to be rather plain and simple.  I realize that it would cost billions of dollars to rebuilt what took hundreds of years to build originally.  But I somehow expected to see more of it rebuilt than has been and the rebuilding to include making the interiors as close to what they were as possible.  Therefore, seeing the Old Town of Dresden has been a disappointment. 

Having said that, the skyline and the exteriors of the buildings that HAVE been rebuilt are impressive.  Of course, they all seemed rather familiar since I have seen photos all my life of places such as the Dresden Opera, the Zwinger Palace, etc.  They are very impressive to see in person.

The "overwhelming" part of the being here is that there are just too many major exhibits to see.  Yesterday, we got here too late to explore.  Tomorrow is Monday when many exhibits are not open, so today was the only day for considering what to see.  I find I can only take so much art, so many historical displays, so many churches, etc. within a period of several days, much less within one day.  People will say I am crazy for being here and not pushing myself to go through museum after museum today, but I didn't.  I saw a couple of churches, I saw an exhibit of Oriental tapestries, but I didn't go through the giant art, history, and science museums.  Maybe I will return someday, but I know my life is fine even if I cannot say I saw the green diamond or the mathematics and science exhibits when I was in Dresden.

After thoroughly exploring the Old Town architecture, we headed toward the Botanical Gardens, the Volkswagon "Glass" Factory (where you can see the assembly line production through the glass walls of the plant), and the Grosse Park.  Then we returned to our neighborhood, ate a sandwich for dinner, stopped at the local park to watch people for a while, and then returned to the hotel.  We will go to the sauna here in the hotel later tonight.