Day 46, Thursday, October 10, 2019
Today was a quiet day. Bob went for a walk to check out the transit system and neighbourhood and I worked on my blog, caught up on some emails and took it easy. The big excursion for the day was going for a few groceries before dinner.
Day 47, Friday, October 11, 2019
Walking to the bus I notice many houses have very attractive front entries.
We can see Hohensalzburg Fortress high on the hill above Salzburg. Tour guide Bob informs me we will visit there on Tuesday.
We can see beautiful green alpine meadows in the hills above Salzburg.
We pass dairy cows right in town just a couple blocks from the train and bus station. The advertisement above the cows gave me a chuckle. 
We pop into a downtown church when we get off the bus. It looks like a community church from the outside, with big cheery murals on either side of the door. The inside is much less ornate than many of the churches we have visited and there is lots of information on community programs and events. Nice to see.
We stop at some food stands selling wine and beer, and have a bit to eat. These giant doughnuts look interesting but we pass. They are as big as small plates!
The gardens around the Mirabell Palace are beautiful. In the movie ‘The Sound of Music’ Maria and the children dance around this Pegasus fountain and sing ‘Do Re Mi’.
The grass contains elaborate knot patterns decorated with flowers. These are freshly planted pansies, hundred of dozens of them!
The Zwergerigarten is a surprise. It is the oldest ‘Dwarf Garden’ in Europe and was built in 1695. Yes, a Dwarf Garden! We had no idea there was such a thing. 
This fellow insisted on trying on Bob’s baseball cap!
The collection of 28 marble dwarf sculptures was sold at auction in 1811. 17 of the sculptures have been recovered and put back into the park in their original positions. Here are some of these curious sculptures.
We have tea and cookies in the garden and then I draw for a while.
I used a new brush pen that I got just before we left for holidays. I think it is going to take a while to get used to. I used a water brush to create value with the water based ink in the pen.
I sketched the mountain this morning waiting for the bus. Drawing these dwarves I was starting to get a feel for how to use this pen. A water brush and white crayon were used to add some value.
Walking through the garden there are some more knot designs created with flowers in the grass.
There is a small Orangerie…
with some goldfish, a turtle and a few birds.
Looking back towards the Mirabelle Palace.
The two towers in the background belong to the church we visited earlier.
These young girls were enjoying the Pegasus Fountain, and I enjoyed watching them.
There seems to be several unicorns here in Salzburg.
I have time for a quick sketch of a beautiful enormous tree while waiting for Bob.
There are a lot of big trees here.
We have never seen a giraffe quite like this before!
We walk along the river heading towards the Old Town.
The Old Town and the Castle on the hill make a striking view.
People are out enjoying the warm weather.
This is the house that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived in with his family until he moved to Vienna in 1781. His family occupied the entire top floor. We were looking for a free film and somehow ended up in the museum instead, so we had a quick look around.
This street was the inspiration for the song ‘Silent Night’. It is a long street so no idea exactly where this inspiration transpired.
This door had interesting marks scratched on it that looks very old.
Here is the entrance to the “Silent Night’ street.
As we explore some of the side streets, we pass this ‘House of Pleasure’, and yes, it seems to be that kind of pleasure!
We also see some graffiti that I quite like. Note how the little ledge is incorporated into the image. Very clever!
This little sidewalk fountain had red roses stuck in small holes in the paving. I wonder why?
We check out the Marionette Theatre, but unfortunately there are no performances while we are here.
While we wait for the bus home I notice an empty store front where someone has written on the glass windows with a black felt pen. It is an interesting different sort of graffiti.
On the way to say goodbye to my friends the sheep I snapped a few more photos of the farm buildings. There were certainly lots of interesting things to see here.
Only the young fellow destined for the table came up to see me today. The other two were playing shy.
This shows how long the front of the house is. The attic full of stuff ran almost the whole length of it. On the far end was the smaller attic above the two bedrooms in the auntie’s house.
Part of the route to St. Florian Monastery, which is our next stop, is a very narrow road through some woods.
The monastery is very large. The stretch of red roof from the church to the front corner is 200 metres long. It covers a corridor that runs its length.
This is the fountain in the middle of the large courtyard.
I am so excited…we actually get to go into a library. This library has 150,000 books, 35,000 of which are in this one room. They are mainly books on Religion and History.
You can see the bookcase door that opens to another room. The spiral staircase to the second floor is in that room. There are many more rooms full of books but we only get to visit this one. We are told that this library is available for the public to use. Wish I lived closer!
I love the library ‘ladders’ used ot reach books on high shelves. Heck, I pretty much love everything about this library!
Later on during the tour we see this photo of Adolph Hiltler standing in the same place we had just stood. It is a strange thought…that we were someplace that he was.
Of course this library also has a magnificent ceiling.
This is why I end up with a sore neck after sightseeing!
Our guide pointed out some of the many fossils that are in the marble on the floors and walls. I never thought of marble as being a stone the came from ancient oceans. The big ammonite was on the fireplace hearth, notice the toe of a shoe in the corner for scale.
One of the many very ornate carved wooden doors in the monastery.
The Monastery church is grand. Lots of carved white stone and dark carved woodwork.
The altar is decorated with bouquets of sunflowers.
We have never seen drapery carved in stone in a church before. Everything in this church looks so very well preserved, there are no broken or dirty bits. In fact everywhere in this monastery is very well taken care of. We wonder where the money to maintain a place this large comes from. 
The church organ was built in 1774 and it is one of the largest working organs in Austria. It is known as the Bruckner Organ as it was played by composer and organist Anton Bruckner. He had been a choir boy at the monastery, and he was the church organist, between 1848 and 1855.
I do not know much about classical music so did not know anything about Anton Bruckner. He was a famous Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist best known for his symphonies and masses. On the floor directly below the organ is a memorial plaque and …
in the crypt directly below this plaque is his sarcophagus. His wish was to be buried here at St. Florian Monastery even though he lived and died in Vienna.
Yes, those are bones behind the sarcophagus, the bones of over 6,000 people, dating back to the 4th century. It is thought that the bones of St. Florian could possibly be in here. 
A few more pictures of the 700 year old crypt which is still used today as a burial place for the monastery monks. The windows open to outside, there is no glass. I wonder if this was so decomposing bodies were ventilated?
We visit twelve guest rooms in the monastery. These rooms have not been used since the mid 18th century and have been preserved as a museum. These elaborately decorated rooms were reserved for royalty who might visit the monastery. These doorways connect all the rooms.
The red bedroom was reserved for Pope Pius VI, although he only spent one night here.
The walls and chairs in this room are covered in matching tapestries. There is a big masonry stove in each of these rooms.
Each room is lavishly decorated. 
The last two rooms are a shrine to Anton Bruckner. The photo shows him in his bed in his Vienna apartment. He died in this bed, which is now on display here along with his other furniture.
Remember those big masonry stoves in the royal apartments? These metal doors in the hallway open to the inside of the stoves. This is how the fires in the stoves were cared for by servants without bothering the apartment occupants.
There are thirty monks at this monastery. Only thirteen live here full time, the rest live in neighbouring parishes. Over the last 950 years the monastery had 108 monks at its peak and only three at its lowest. I am told that thirty monks is quite good ‘these days’. There is one young monk, several in their fifties and sixties and the rest are older. We see this monk as we are leaving and assume he is the one young one.
The cemetery beside the church is the prettiest, most well cared for one we have ever visited.
As we drive towards Salzburg we pass several huge piles of sugar beets in the fields. Austria grows more than 3 million tonnes of sugar beets every year.
Finally we find a safe place to pull off the road so I can get a photo of one of the fields of pumpkins we have seen along the way.
We make a quick stop at Kremsmunster Monastery but it can only be visited by guided tours and we don’t have time. The church is open and it is the only one we have seen that has tapestries wrapped around its pillars.
Back on the road, from a distance, I thought this was another field of pumpkins or maybe squash, but they are sunflowers.
Good thing the sun wasn’t shining or I would have wanted to stay much longer and take many more photos. What a beautiful sight it was to see so many gorgeous sunflowers.
We pass refineries that stretch for more than a kilometre.
We find our Flixbus at the airport easily and it is just on hour ride to the airport. After stopping in the town centre of Bratislava we are the only ones left on the bus. We asked the driver to make sure we were on the right bus…it seemed strange that no one else was going to the airport.
Our first view of the Danube River.
When we get to the airport there were maybe a dozen other people there!
The place feels almost abandoned, but we do find an English Time magazine with Justin Trudeau on the cover, so we can catch up on the news.
We discover why there are so few people here. There is only one flight every hour or so departing from here.
We pick up our car rental, a nice blue Škoda Octavia, and we take a side road back to Austria. We see several hilltop castles but no time to stop and explore today.
This route takes us through many small towns. We were hoping to see the Danube as we are driving right along side it, but there just isn’t any place we can find to get down to the riverside. Guess that will have to wait for another day.
The road narrows to one lane to go through this town gate. 
We stop for groceries on the way home and find a place to park our car on a side street near our apartment.
This sculpture makes us smile. It appears to have a dog drinking dish at its bottom.
Peering into a church courtyard we see this crucifix right beside a gift shop. It seems strange to have an upscale gift shop in a church courtyard.
Bob leads us down several little side streets to the John Lennon Wall. Since the 1980s it has been filled with John Lennon-inspired graffiti, pieces of lyrics from Beatles’ songs, and other designs relating to local and global causes.
We stop for a picnic lunch in this little park beside St. Charles Bridge…
and sit on a dragon bench.
The streets in Prague are busy no matter where we go. We wonder what they must be like during the summer months?
It showers on and off as we arrive at the monastery. Note the cobbled road. All these uneven cobbled surfaces are quite hard on our feet and ankles.
The Strahov Monastery was founded in 1143 and has many buildings and extensive gardens.
First stop is the Strahov Library and I am delighted to find that there is an exhibit of Cabinets of Curiosities! 
I love these cabinets and have several drawers at home with my own curiosities. Perhaps I need to make my own Cabinet of Curiosities?
Some of the contents are rather strange.
We are told that this ‘might’ be a young dodo bird!
These books are very unusual. This is a 68 volume Dendrological Library. Dendrology is the science and study of wooded plants. The covers of each volume are made of the wood of a particular tree, the spine has its name in Latin and German, and inside each volume are pieces of the roots, branches and twigs, as well as leaves, blossoms, fruit, and sometimes even insect pests. As a paper artist and bookmaker, I find these unusual volumes fascinating and inspiring.
Along the hallway between two magnificent libraries are display cases with very old volumes. This 1632 woodcut first appeared in a compilation of English Alchemical texts. This piece was printed by hand on Japanese hand made paper and the pass-partout, or mat, is covered in handmade marbled paper. 
The John of Šellmberk’s Bible preserves the oldest translation of the Bible into the Czech language and dates from the 1400’s. Notice how thick the volume is!
This exquisite miniature book from the 15th century is only about 3″ x 4″ and would have belonged to a private citizen.
A page from the Missale of Louka, 1483, illuminations from the Strahov Evangeliary, 860-865 AD and on the bottom right, a book for private use from the 15th century.
The Theological Hall was built in the 1600’s and holds over 20,000 volumes. One whole wall is filled with various editions of the Bible, or its parts, in various languages.
The ceiling depicts the life of the librarian.
There are several globes, both terrestrial and astronomical, in the centre of the room and the interesting device on the left is a book wheel from 1678 for the study and compilation of books. The gear inside enabled the shelves to remain at the same angle when they are turned so that the books would not slide off the shelves.
As magnificent as the Theological Hall is I think that the Philosophical Hall is even more impressive. This library, finished in 1794, is 32 metres long, 10 metres wide and 14 metres in height. The ceiling painting, ‘The Spiritual Development of Mankind’, was created by a Viennese artist, and one assistant in just six months!
The shelves of books in the gallery are only accessible from hidden spiral staircases in both corners, masked by false book spines.
The books are shelved two deep. At one time tourists were allowed to walk through the library but this caused too much humidity and put the paintings and volumes at risk. Now we have to contend ourselves with peering in from the doorway. Too bad but it is still wonderful to see these incredible libraries.
The Philosophical Hall contains more than 50,000 volumes on Philosophy, all the sciences, history, law, and natural sciences.
Next we visit the Convent Building which has galleries on two floors around this cloister with its unusual trapezoid pool.
There is an exhibit of large restored paintings depicting the life of St. Norbert but they were difficult to see. My neck got sore from looking up all the time.
The ‘procession’ at the end of the room holds a reliquary with what appears to be part of St. Norbert’s skull.
Another room has exhibits of beautifully embroidered church vestments and other liturgical objects including heavily jewelled monstrances.
It does make me wonder just how much money the Catholic Church has?
The second floor has a gallery around three sides of the cloister. 
There were a few paintings I liked but most of them didn’t really impress either of us all that much.
Bob notices another ornate old lock.
As we leave the monastery grounds on our way to the Prague Funicular, we pass the 63.5 metre high Petrin Tower, which is reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower. This tower was built in 1891, and is used as an observation tower as well as a transmission tower.
The 383 metre long funicular takes us back down to Prague city streets. I didn’t get much of a view because some young people kindly jumped up to give me a seat, so instead of standing where I could see I sat all the way down! The hazards of having grey hair!
It has been a full day and we are happy to be home. I had planned on going to life drawing again tonight, but we need to clean and pack for our trip to Vienna tomorrow so I decide not to go.
We had a good laugh. Bob thought that the two guards in the guard-boxes were wax mannequins. They were so motionless!
Perhaps my favourite is the window designed by Alphonse Mucha. You may remember we saw his design drawing for this window at the Mucha Museum yesterday.
The beautiful rose window on the entrance wall of the cathedral was completed in 1925 and took two years to complete. The inscriptions on the stained glass tell the story of Creation as told in the Bible. 
This wooden panel from 1630 shows the St. Charles Bridge, built in 1403, that we visited on Saturday. The city doesn’t really look all that different, does it?
St. Vitus is portrayed with a rooster by his side, because he was boiled to death in a pot with a rooster! These saints all seem to have had horrible tortuous deaths. St. Vitus never actually even visited this cathedral, but a relic, or pieces of his body, was brought here and the Cathedral was built to honour him.
St John of Nepomuk’s tomb is an elaborate baroque silver tomb with angels supporting a draped canopy. It is said to contain two tonnes of silver. St. John is the patron saint of the Czechs. There are so many people visiting this cathedral that I had to take this photo looking back towards the tomb to get a decent shot. 
This is the chapel dedicated to St. Wenceslas, the king and patron saint of all the Czech lands. The lower part of the walls are decorated with more than 1300 gems and the joints between them are covered with gold. The walls are covered in frescoes and the relics of St. Wenceslas are kept in the red draped case. 
As we are leaving, the sun comes out for a bit and shines through the stained glass windows casting coloured light into the cathedral. Note the lady posing behind Bob. We seem to see her everywhere we go today and she is always posing ‘just so’ for a photo. I’m not sure her and her husband are even looking at the cathedral as anything but a backdrop for her photographs.
As beautiful as this cathedral is, I still love some of the simpler details that are easy to overlook with all the grandeur surrounding us.
A view of the Cathedral. This front entrance isn’t used by tourists, we entered on the end of the cathedral behind the building with orange panels.
since the 16th century, the Vladislav Hall in the Old Royal Place, was used for coronation festivities and banquets, knights’ tournaments and markets for luxurious goods. The Vladislav Hall still is used for state functions. It is an enormous room.
The Old Palace contained the Land Rolls, where all matters regarding property rights and criminal law were recorded. 
An interesting door handle.
One room had chairs which are almost the same as the ones my Swiss grandfather used to make, only he put more carving and decoration on his.
The present day appearance of St. George’s Basilica dates to the reconstruction after a devastating fire in 1142. Now it is used for short-term art exhibitions.
We visit St. Georges 12th century crypt and see this rather bizarre sculpture. I did some research and discovered that it is “a Late Gothic Statue of Brigita, representing a dead and decaying girl´s body. It is a symbol of impermanence. A legend says that it was made by a sculptor, who killed his girlfriend and wanted to create her statue before he was executed. However, he was only able to make it as a dead body, because of his despair.” ~.www.prague.cz 
On the way out we see this collection of relics, but have no idea who they are. These relics seem a bit bizarre. Not only was the poor person usually tortured and killed but then their bones were carted off, often to several different locations and put on display. Hmmm.
This is the Golden Lane. This lane of tiny houses was built against the northern wall of the castle. These tiny houses were occupied until World War II and have been preserved so that the character of this lane has not changed. From 1916 to 1917 house No. 22 was inhabited by the writer Franz Kafka.
The name of the Lane is derived from goldsmiths who used to live there. I struck up a conversation with a gentleman who told me that he and his father were both goldsmiths and that the tools have not changed at all. He also said his father died young and that he quit because some of the processes involved are very toxic.
The houses are tiny and have tiny doors.
This was a fortune teller’s house whose predictions about the early fall of the Third Reich resulted in her being arrested and tortured to death by the Gestapo.
An amateur historian who saved many copies of old films that were intended for disposal during the Second World War lived here. We watch one film that showed scenes of Prague and this Golden Lane. It looks much like it does today.
We almost missed seeing a huge display of old armaments and armour. It was quite interesting. Some the swords have pistols built into them, or axes attached!
And then there is the torture chamber. These places give me the creeps. It is just so hard ot think of people subjecting each other to such pain and terror. Bob is standing beside an Iron Maiden, which has spikes inside just long enough to pierce the body and make sure that the person inside dies a slow painful death. There are two spikes placed so that they will pierce the eyes of whoever is placed inside, and take a look at that chair! It is enough to give me nightmares.
After the torture chamber we see some great views of Prague…
can you spot our TV Tower? It is hard to miss.
As we leave the castle the changing of the guards marches past. A couple of the guards have their hats blown off by the wind but they just keep marching, although they did smile! It was crazy windy today and a bit cold so it was a good day to be inside.
Walking past the Cathedral towards the exit I thought to look up, and yes, there were gargoyles! I love gargoyles, in case you didn’t know.
This shrub was near the exit. I have no idea what it is and wonder if anyone else might know?
This knitted sculpture ‘Carmen’ is the creation of Eva Blahová, an artist and scenic designer living in Prague. 33 knitters from all over the Czech Republic were involved in this project and they knit over 50 meters of red ruffles to dress an existing sculpture. It is pretty impressive.
Walking towards the “Dancing House’ we pass beautiful Art Nouveau buildings with very grand entrances.
These entrances are on this block of buildings. Although Prague was bombed in World War II it did not suffer the catastrophic damages of Berlin and Dresden. There are so many beautiful buildings with lots of carved decorations here.
The Dancing House, or Fred and Ginger, as it is nicknamed, was built in place of a building that was destroyed during the war. We think we know which is Fred and which is Ginger. What do you think?
We crossed this bridge and had our picnic lunch in a little park with this view. Prague has lots of trees and parks.
Here ae some more pastel coloured buildings we see on our walk along the river.
These statues holding up a balcony are quite wonderful. 
I think Bob might have been a locksmith in another life. He is always noticing interesting locks.
We arrive at the most famous Baroque church in Prague, St. Nicholas Church, at Old Town Square. The dome has a diameter of 20 m, with a height of over 49 m, making it the highest interior in Prague. The church was completed in 1735, replacing a parish church dating back to 1273. There is so much history everywhere we visit. Canada is such a young country in comparison.
The ceiling fresco is over 1500 square metres in size and is one of the largest in Europe. 
We climb to the second floor balcony for some great views of the church.
These painted blocks are a fundraising project for disabled people. You pay for a brick and then get to paint it. We didn’t have time today but I see that someone from Canada contributed a brick.
At the Mucha Museum I learn the Alphonse Mucha’s name is pronounced mooka, not moosha as I thought. We see many of his lithograph works that I am familiar with. The Four Flowers..
Evening Reverie…
and the Four Arts, which celebrate Dance, Painting, Poetry and Music.
I particularly loved being able to get close up to some of Mucha’s drawings. Woman on a Bear Skin is drawn with a pencil and a white crayon on a brown ground. It is amazing. A photo does not even begin to do it justice. It was also behind non-glare glass which does not photograph the best.
Winter Night, or Siberia, may have been Mucha’s response to the terrible suffering of the Russian people after the Bolshevik Revolution. There was a famine that killed millions of people. It is difficult to see, but in the upper left of the painting there is a pack of wolves. The peasant woman seems to have resigned herself to her fate. I was not aware of Mucha’s large oil paintings. He completed a series of very large canvases called the Slav Epic, a series of 20 enormous canvases that show the ethnic roots of the Czech people. Unfortunately we weren’t able to visit the Czech National Gallery of Modern Art to see these paintings as it was under renovation. 
This collection of photographs was interesting. It showed some of Mucha’s models, and the bottom two middle photos are Mucha in his studio and Gaugin playing the piano…without any trousers!
Pages of his sketchbooks are on display. I love seeing artist’s sketchbooks. It is a way of understanding how they think about their art.
Not all the sketches are detailed drawings. There are some quick gestural studies as well.
Another study using pencil and white crayon on brown paper. Just gorgeous!
This is a study for the stained glass window in St. Vitus Cathedral. Mucha was skilled in many areas of artistic expression.
Mucha created this famous poster for the ballet named Princess Hyacinth. I was happily snapping photos when near the end of our visit a docent told me that photos were not allowed. I was surprised as we have been able to take photos, without a flash, every where else we have been. I am very happy she didn’t see me until near the end of our visit!
One of many flower stands in the city. I often see both men and women carrying bouquets of flowers.
We saw a toy store so took a peek inside. OMG! it was huge, very noisy and had a full size carousel! 
This made us think of the Hotel Europa we stayed at in Egypt a few years ago. It certainly was not grand and it wasn’t a pleasant experience at all!
Walking back along Wenceslas Square I notice that someone has knocked over the horse sculptures we saw earlier. I like this statue, all covered in sewn leather, with his hands sewn to his head and groin. Not sure what it is supposed to represent but it does make viewers pause and contemplate.
I keep trying to get a photo that shows how strange people look on these long metro escalators. There is an optical illusion that happens and everyone appears to be either leaning forward or backwards, depending they are going up or down the escalators. Somehow it just doesn’t show that well in a photo. The camera doesn’t see things the same way as our brain does. It is very curious and I comment every time we ride these crazy, long, steep fast escalators.
This church is in the park right beside the metro stop near our apartment. We were curious to see inside but it is under renovation and the doors are locked. We sat and had tea in this park the day after our flight into Prague over a month ago.
I wanted to get a photo or two showing how people drink alcohol walking down the street, in the parks, and even on the metro (although they aren’t really supposed to drink on public transit). We see that in Prague and it was especially prevalent in Berlin. People walked around with their bottle of beer everywhere. Not what we are used to seeing at home.
In the evening, Bob leaves me at Wenscelas Square where I join a Prague Urban Sketcher group. There are about ten of us, and after introductions we head our separate ways to draw for 1 1/4 hours, before we meet up again. It takes me a bit to get going so I start with what I am familiar with…people.
It started to rain so I found a sidewalk table with an umbrella and drew two of the sculptures on the huge St. Wenscelas Statue at the top of the square.
I tried to draw a part of the National History Museum, but wasn’t too successful, the perspective was way off and the dome lop-sided. People seem easier to draw than buildings, so in the last few minutes before we gather I sketch some of the people walking by on the sidewalk. Wenscelas Square is an awesome people watching place.
At the end of their set, the band members ‘mooned’ the audience to great applause and laughter. There was also a tall, big fellow dressed in a long curly blonde wig and a nightie with a cape! No idea what that was about…maybe a stag party?
While waiting for everyone to gather back for our last ‘show and tell’ I had time to draw these three. This is only the second Urban Sketcher Meet-Up that I have attended and it was fun. The other sketchers were very welcoming and there were some fantastic drawings. I wish I would have taken a few photos of their work. I just checked and there is a 
As I was leaving, the National Museum looked beautiful lit up against the night sky.
Here is the very, very long, steep escalator I go down to catch the metro home.
Do you remember the TV tower from near our very first bnb when we arrived in Prague a month ago? We are in the same neighbourhood. It looks quite spectacular at night. It is only a ten minute walk from the metro to our apartment.
We walk through the Zwinger Palace grounds.
There are a lot of beautiful buildings here, which is surprising because Dresden was heavily bombed during the Second World War.
I don’t know what these buildings are but we enjoyed walking about and looking at their exteriors.
We go inside the Dresden Cathedral, which was heavily damaged during war but was restored by 1962.
Here are photos showing the damage caused by the bombing.
We walk along the Elbe River, looking for a bathroom, or WC as they are called here. They are few and far between! We do find this lovely terrace where the trees form a canopy over the whole area.
While we were still looking for the elusive WC’s, that were marked on our map but didn’t seem to be anywhere to be found, we discover this beautiful big tree that begged us to take its photo.
The Frauenkirche Dresden, or Church of Our Lady is a Luthern Church that was almost completely destroyed during the war. Only parts of its crypts remained intact. The interior is very beautiful with luminous pastel colours and lots of light.
The crypt was huge, not what we were expecting at all. There were modern sculptures displayed here. This one shows ‘Construction’ and ‘Destruction’ opposite each other.
This burned and twisted cross is from the original church.
Here is the church from our vantage point in the square outside. The dark stones are the ones that were from the original church.
This is an impressive sight, and the detail is amazing. It is also amazing that this mural survived the bombing of Dresden with minimal damage.
We notice a doorway…looks like Bob is ‘walking towards the light’!
The doorway opens on this courtyard with a different horned animal on each pillar. I think someone liked hunting?
Back to the Zwinger Palace and Bob discovers that we can walk up to the elevated walkway for some great views of the palace and its grounds.
Statues line the walkway and this dome is over the entrance to the grounds.
There are some interesting sculptures on the interior walls of the palace and one of the walls has fountains all along its length.
There is some work taking place on the outside wall of the palace and I really liked the graffiti on the construction barricades.
We end our day with a ride on the ferris wheel. It has been many years since we were last on a ferris wheel.
Here are some views from the top of the ferris wheel. The people and cars below are very tiny!
We stand and watch for a while…
and then decide that we need to take part so we joined the protestors. Here is 
The march is going in the opposite direction, away from the Berlin Dom, so we step to the sidewalk and spend the next hour watching the people march by. Imagine crowds like in the pictures below walking by steadily for more than an hour, and there was still no end in sight.
We think that there has to be more than 100,000 people protesting here, people of all ages, and ethnicities. Here is 
The protest march continued but we thought we better go do the last bit of our sightseeing in Berlin. The Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Dictatorship below held just one piece of sculpture, Käthe Kollwitz’s famous ‘Mother with Dead Son’, created in 1938.
It has quite an impact, all alone in this big stark space. I discover there is a Käthe Kollwitz museum, but it is not nearby and we have run out of time in Berlin. Too bad, I love her drawings and would have liked to have seen them.
Just across the street we see a very colourful exhibit and head over to find out what it is…7,000 pompoms that form a ‘Wall of Love” installation.
Right across from the pompoms is this absolutely enormous Platane tree. I think this is the same kind of tree that is on the boulevards by our apartment. It has a 30 metres spread!
Bob wanted to find the plaque in a nearby square where the Nazis burned 25,000 books in 1933. There is also a clear glass panel that looks down below the square onto a room filled with empty bookcases. The glass was too cloudy to get a photo.
Walking toward the Berlin Dom we pass the park we had our picnic lunch a few days ago. There is no grass, only a packed gravel surface. The parks in European cities are used by so many people that grass would not survive.
Finally we arrive at the Berlin Dom, much later than we had planned.
This is a Protestant church that is every bit as ornate as the Catholic Churches we have visited in Europe.
The dome above the altar is magnificent. The Church was hit by a napalm bomb in the Second World War and the dome collapsed into the church. It was open to the elements for many years before it was finally restored to its former glory.
This photo shows the bombed Berlin Dom. I had no idea how badly bombed Berlin was before we visited here. 
This is where we are climbing to.
The 367 steps were worth it! Here are some of the views from the dome.
We can hear music from way up here. Turns out it is this fellow far below.
He is the person on the left side of this bridge with a guitar case on the ground in front of him. I even zoomed in a bit to take this photo. It was surprising how clearly we could hear all the words of his song.
The park area in front of the Berlin Dom and the Altes Museum.
Bob is getting to be quite the photographer.
Looking down some of the stairs we climbed. At least they were good sturdy stairs, unlike some of the rickety belltower ones we have climbed in the past.
Part way down there is a small museum with models of the church. The plaster and wooden models used to build the original church were used in the reconstruction of the church after it was bombed.
We were way up there walking along the outside of the rectangular windows. 
We weren’t sure if the buses were running after the protest march, so we walked back along the river towards the metro station On the way we see this parade of boats.
Turns out is is another protest “march” with lots of music and dancing. Take a look at the back of the boat in the second photo. We wondered if it was about to sink, it was so low in the water.
There were all sorts of spectators watching the boats.
There are lots of beautiful big trees in Berlin.
Just before we get to the metro we pass a store with hundreds of old sewing machines lining its windows. Kind of neat reflections too. It was a much longer day than we expected but I was so glad we got to see and take part, even for a bit, in the Climate March. When we get home we discover that there were marches like this all around the world! YAY!! Finally people are realizing that we need to change the way we live.
These workers are laying paving bricks for a huge plaza. We have not seen poured cement sidewalks or plazas here, they are all made with paving stones. It seems very labour intensive.
The Gemäldegalerie is our first stop today. This museum is near the Berlin Zoo and has one of the world’s leading collections of European paintings from the 13th to the 18th century. The quality of the artwork here is amazing. This is the first painting we see, part of an altar from 1437 telling the story of Jesus on the left, and Mary on the right. The white ‘baseboard’ in the photo comes almost mid-thigh on me, to give you an idea of the scale of the works.
The corner of one painting from 1444 shows two pregnant women, notice the babies depicted on their stomachs. I had never seen this symbolism before.
We both liked the Fountain of Youth by Lucas Cranach, 1546. This is not the style of his work that I am familiar with…
this is! I have always wondered at this artist’s creativity.
Wow!! This painting by Rogier van Der Weyen from 1440 is my absolute favourite of everything we have seen so far this trip. I absolutely love it and wish that the photo was able to convey the impact it has in person. I would have bought a print but it was almost $100 and I worried about getting it home safely. This is a painting I could live with forever.
I am fond of Frans Hals portraits and there was a whole room of them.
This artist must like them too. What a tough way to work though, on a little stool, holding such a large drawing board. I assume the museum does not allow easels.
I am excited to see this Vermeer from across the room, but then..
I notice The Girl with the Pearl Earring. I had no idea the this painting was in this museum. What a lovely surprise.
Anna Dorothea Therbusch, 1721-1782, is one of the few women artists who actually made a living as an artist. This is a self portrait.
There are Caravaggio’s here…
including this Botticellis Venus.
And there are Rembrandts, including these two famous self portraits.
I finally get to see these two tondos in person, the one on the left by Raffael (34″ diameter) and the one on the right by Botticelli (54″ diameter). I particularly like the Botticelli, his Madonnas are always so beautiful.
This was fun! I am so glad we visited the Gemäldegalerie, it was quite amazing.
After a picnic lunch we check out the Kunstgwerbe Museum nearby. I would love to have this beautiful geometry set from the 16th century.
This museum has lots of porcelain, furniture and church treasures, but we walk by all these. It is just too much to absorb.
A few items did catch our eye though. This is an elaborate portable kitchen from 1807, maybe used for camping? All the info is in German, so not sure.
These glazed porcelain figurines were part of a group of 15 that were awarded a gold medal at the 1900 International Exhibition in Paris. 
There was also an exhibit on Afro Hair, with some very different displays.
And finally, an interesting walk through women fashions through the ages.
Whew! and we aren’t finished yet. We catch a bus back across town to visit the oldest church in Berlin but the interior has been updated so much. It wasn’t what we were expecting, but still interesting. For some reason there was a rooster crowing inside the church? No idea what that was about.
We split up, Bob heads to the Bode Museum and I catch the metro to go life drawing. I pass this post with just a few posters wrapped around it on my way to drawing.
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