The re-building of Dresden is almost complete but, as in any city, there is a continuum of regeneration. A bridge over the Elbe is closed to traffic for reconstruction and some bomb sites have not been rebuilt.
Another aspect you may have noticed in the pictures I took last weekend is the relative lack of tourists. Museums, galleries, restaurants and bars are uncrowded and most of the visitors seem to be from Germany or the Czech Republic. The atmosphere is provincial in a good way. I still remember with horror a visit to Versailles in mid-winter when the huge courtyard in front of the palace was filled with a snaking queue of tourists waiting to gain admittance. We had pre-booked but we still needed to join the queue in a bitingly cold wind. Result: I have never been inside Versailles.
Yesterday we went to the Residenzschloss, Dresden’s Renaissance palace dating from 1485 but not taking its Baroque shape until 1719. It was of course almost completely destroyed in WW II and has been reconstructed and work is on-going as it is at the Zwinger Palace. One museum before lunch is enough for me and I chose the Grünes Gewölbe’s (the green vault). It has some of the treasures collected by the Electors of Saxony. Some, especially the silver, were melted down in the Seven Years War.
Among the oldest pieces are two decorated glass beakers from Syria, circa 1300. There are plenty of bejewelled caskets, swords, and so on but also a mammoth, the mot juste, collection of decorated horn, ivory, bone, rhinoceros, and even some decorated coconut. There were a few beautiful objects but the overall effect was of a cornucopia of kitsch. Perhaps less would have been more.
On Sunday evening we went to Rigoletto at the Semperoper but let’s save that for another day.
