Stolpen Castle and the Palaces of Dresden

The Monday of our Dresden visit, cousin Peggy had nothing to do and offered to take us on a trip into the countryside to visit Stolpen castle and see the palaces of Dresden.  We of course were very excited!  Now, both of these locations are historically invested with a one August the Strong (you may recall from a previous post that he was something of a big deal in Dresden, statues etc.).  In particular, both these locations have to do with a romance gone wrong on the level of a Shakespeare play involving the Countess Cosel and our old pal August.   However, before i continue with the story of our visit here is some entertaining history done my way!

Disclaimer: if you want the legit history, get a book.  This is my very silly, over the top version infused with humor, slang and whatever other literary spices I have jangling around up in ye olde noggin; not necessarily with researched facts, although I try not to be incorrect if I can.

And now, the abridged version of the story as according to yours truly....  

August the Strong being king or whatever, had a sweet chunk of change to throw around as he pleased, and since he had a thing for mistresses, lavish parties and real estate, by god he threw it around something terrible.  So one day, August meets this sweet young thing by the name of Anna Constantia.  She is the daughter of a knight from Hamburg who happened to raise her with quite an education.  She spoke multiple languages, was good with math and had a taste for hunting as well as several other qualities that got August's attention.  Not surprisingly the two hit it off swimmingly and Augs decided that she would be his new official court mistress.  Thus, via some inner workings of feudal courts and such, she gains the title of "Countess Cosel" (damn it Jim, I'm a traveler not a lawyer).  So the Countess tags along with the Augster to parties, court stuff and pretty much anything where he wanted to look good, i.e., everything.  Things were going awesome for the power couple, so August the Strong, sugar daddy that he was, took a gander at the Chinese architecturally inspired Pillnitz palace and thought, "yo, I'm totally gonna snag that for my main squeeze and we're gonna have swingin' parties and rage it up!" (Cue AC/DC's 'highway to hell').  Legend has it that around the same time that he gifts this palace to the countess, he also makes some sort of marriage proposal (note, he already had a wife and other mistresses and she had been married at least once previously and had at least one kid under the radar... cue 'chain of fools').  Countess Cosel takes the palace and the marriage proposal note and puts in her pocket for later... *wink*.  Anyway, about 7 years go by, the couple has 3 kids, the countess has become ever more involved in August's politics (much the the chagrin of everyone in the court) and had still not returned his proposal.  Needless to say, she was starting to make enemies and August was getting a little peeved; so she said, "sucks to your assmar" and high-tailed it to Berlin leaving everyone in Dresden to eat her dust.  

Now, being something of a smarty-pants you would think Cos-alicious would have realized you don't just dip out on August the Strong after he has hooked you up with palaces and the like for 7 years.  Predictably enraged, August declares his old mistress a traitor of the state, pulls a Dubya and sends out the order to "smoke her out, round her up, and bring her to justice".  Before she can unpack her matched luggage in Berlin, August's men are breaking the door down and are carting her off to her new home at Stolpen Castle.  She would remain locked in a tower at this new castle (new to her, it was a used castle) for some 49 years where she eventually punched her ticket to the afterlife.  Unfortunately for Countess Cosel, she had made so many enemies in the court that even after August kicked the bucket, the court members (and presumably her own children) decided to just keep here locked up so she wouldn't meddle in their affairs again.  

Ok so, back to the trip.

So there we were, riding in Peggy's car into some lovely Saxon countryside.  We decided to visit the Castle Stoplen first, as it has a closing time whereas the Palaces are sort of public domain.  Similarly to our visit to Königstein, we arrived in a small town with a disproportionately large, old, fortress.  The day was gray and threatening rain, which is pretty typical of European summer and we noticed some large modern windmills - the sort used for generating electricity - that were in no shortage of wind.  After a brief search, we found some street parking that required you to park literally, half on the sidewalk (seriously there was a sign with a picture of how to do it).  At this point we were happy to have Peggy with us because her German is about eight million times better than ours and there were no English signs to be seen anywhere.  Also similarly to our Königstein visit, the way to get to the castle wasn't really clear.  Luckily we found a local man in overalls who gave Peggy directions on which path to follow to get there.  After a short stroll on what looked to me to be a bike path, we arrived at the gate of Stolpen castle.  This castle had a distinctly different vibe to it compared to Königstein.  Stolpen is built in the middle of a large basalt formation, which if you don't know, is a type of volcanic rock that forms into geometric columns.

The entrance.  The coat of arms at the top of the doorway is said to be the most valuable part of the whole castle.

When the gate was closed, people trying to gain access to the castle at night would have to use a little side door to the right of the main entrance.  Interestingly enough they had a little audio channel built into the wall that would allow the gate keeper to overhear anything that was being said by those trying to gain entrance.  Quite an engineering marvel considering they had to make a little tunnel into 4 foot thick stone walls.

Basalt pillars coming up from the ground.  They built the castle on top using pieces of the basalt sort of like bricks.

The basalt naturally forms in these geometric columns, this cluster has been sheered off allowing us to get a good view .

We made our way into the castle grounds and saw 3 predominant towers on the premises.  The first tower we investigated turned out to be the very one that Countess Cosel had spent the bulk of her life locked away in.  I wouldn't say that it was a particularly bad tower, but I sure wouldn't want to spend 49 years locked in there!  It wasn't especially warm in there even considering it was the middle of summer; I can only imagine that it was miserably cold during winter.

The tower on the right is the one Countess Cosel was kept in.  the little structure sticking out the right side about 3/4 up is her commode.

Matt taking a look up at the Cosel tower.

The staircases inside all of the towers were pretty treacherous spiral stone stairs that would spell disaster for anyone not surefooted who attempted to go up (or down).

One of the staircases.  I assume the markings are the trademark of the masons who built them.

Cosel's desk.

After checking out Cosel's digs, we made our way back out of the tower and into the the rest of the castle.  As with all fortresses Stolpen also had some battlements that included some very old cannons and mortars. In my opinion, the most impressive thing about the whole fortress was the water supply.  They have a well that took some 34 years to dig through solid basalt rock.  They used a technique that involved setting large wood fires on top of the rock which caused it to crack; this allowed some poor grunts to get in there and chip away at the rock with rudimentary tools.  They were able to achieve something like one meter of progress per YEAR @_@... and you thought your job was bad!  

A view of the town from one of the towers.

After checking out the other two towers, the wine cellar and a cheeky little coin operated "ghost" we decided we had best make our way to the palaces!

A view of the 'Water Palace' from the courtyard.

The Palaces in Dresden are nothing short of amazing!  Beautifully constructed in an homage to Chinese styling (which was in vogue at the time) Countess Cosel sure had it good... before the whole tower thing.  We were able to see the steps leading into the Elbe that August the Strong used to gain access to his boat as well as a brief tour of the gardens.  Peggy informed us that still to this day the Dresdners have summer parties and festivals on palace grounds complete with live music and fireworks!  

Matt and Peggy checking out the courtyard.

With our bellies rumbling and poor weather closing in, your fearless adventurers and guide/host Peggy made our way back to base for some eats and rest!  

More posts coming soon!  Sorry this was a bit of a long one!

Back Home

Dear blog followers, we have made it safely back home to Vermont from our trip in case anyone was concerned.  Sorry about the delay in posting, but we have been very, very busy and internet had not been all that easy to get.   Fear not, I will post more about the rest of our adventure soon, but for now this weary traveler needs some rest!  On deck for the blog posts are more Dresden adventures including palaces and castles as well as a visit with our friends Tobias and Julia in the city of Erfurt, as well as adventures in Prague and Vienna!  Check back soon, the best has yet to come!

Königstein Fortress

Just a little outside the city of Dresden there is a massive fortress called königstein.  Cousin Peggy had been talking it up and had given us a brochure she had acquired on a previous visit, so we decided to have a gander.  We hopped on our trusty public transportation bus which we took to the S-bahn (a type of between city train).  Once again, our trusty eurail train passes came in very handy as they were also valid for this type of train!  The train ride itself took about 40 minutes or so and let us off at the base of the mountain that königstein is built on (well in the town at the base of the mountain but you get the idea).  You can see the fortress perched atop a very steep and rocky mountainside and it makes one wonder how in the world they could have built such a massive structure up there.  The logistics of getting the building materials to the site and then actually getting them into place blew my mind.  With the first recorded establishment on the mountain dated in the 1200's, it took literally hundreds of years to finish.  Construction continued in various shapes and forms up until the 1700's (some minor buildings etc were added after but all the big stuff finished then) at which point it became truly impressive. 
Some of the noteworthy features of the fortress include the second deepest well in all of Europe, the largest wine cellar of any fortress of the like, and it was never captured.  In fact, I believe most people took one look at it just said, "well, forget that".  Seriously, trying to invade königstein in the days before airplanes would have been about as effective as treating a sunburn with more sun.

This is the view from where we got off the train.  You can see the fortress up on the hill there; it doesn't took too terribly impressive from this distance but trust me, it is.  Also, the trees on the hillside mask just how rugged the terrain is; which we found out first hand on the hike up.

We stepped off the train and began to head into town.  There were some of the usual restaurants and such, but overall, the town is very small.  Unless you cheat and take a tour bus to see the fortress, getting to it is not exactly easy.  You first have to locate a not-so-well marked road/path which is very steep, and of course, made out of cobblestone.  It had rained slightly earlier in the day and was misting some while we were winding our way up the hill, so the path itself was a little bit slippery and dangerous (we took a couple spills).  After what was about a 30 minute hike, your exhausted adventurers reached the walls of the fortress and tried to catch our breath.

Whats that you say?  A ladder could get over the wall?  NONSENSE! 

For real, how did they build this thing?   It is part mountain rock, part man molded rock, and 100% massive.  If you look closely at the top of the lower wall, you may notice it is lined with pointy spear-like metal pieces.  Quaint.

The walkway to the entrance.





Now that we had finally made it up the hill, it was time to check out the digs so we made our way inside.  Immediately upon entrance one is struck with the sheer magnitude of not only the establishment itself, but the view of the surrounding area.  Königstein was built square in the middle of some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen.  The rolling hills of Saxony are in full view and with the summer sun lighting up the greens and yellows of the vegetation, I gotta say, you'd be hard pressed to build a 'humble abode' with a better view.

Just about where the bend in the river is, is where we got off the train.  You can see part of the town on the right.

Not a bad view, eh?

Once inside, we proceeded to make our way around the perimeter to check out more of the view as well as some of the battlements which included cannons and sweet look-out perches for heavens knows what sort of nasty defenses (from that height a rock would do enough damage if well aimed).  It seemed like every time we turned a corner the view couldn't get any better... then we'd turn another corner and BAM holy panorama batman!

Part of the 'newer' additions.  königstein saw use in both world wars as a POW camp/medical facility for treating wounded soldiers.  Again, dig on the wicked view of the land.  The defenders could see anything coming and had the guns to keep them off the lawn (insert angry old man fist shake here).

Matty checking out one of the lookout stations found here and there along the perimeter.

Here I am checking out one of the historic cannons (this one was circa mid 1700's, I believe 1741 was the date stamped on the barrel).  Being on the receiving end of a blast from several of these defending guns would have been terrifying!

After completing our perimeter inspection, we made our way towards the middle of property and came across a little war museum.  This had some history about the fortress as well as examples of weapons used during the times when it was active (not necessarily used in the fort itself, but during the same period of time i.e. Napoleonic wars, WWI, WWII etc.).  We spent a good chunk of time in the museum checking out the examples of weapons and uniforms, so by the time we left to see the rest, the grounds were closing.  The brochure we had was a couple years old and they had scaled back their visiting hours a bit, making closing time 2 hours earlier the day we visited.  But it was just as well, as we were getting hungry and it was time to head back to Dresden to see the final Euro cup soccer game at Magdalena and Stefan's.  (Spain vs Italy, Italy who had knocked out Germany got beaten badly by the Spanish).  After a long day of sightseeing, hiking, and soccer we were ready to hit the hay and start the next day's adventures!

View From the Top

After an afternoon of perusing Dresden's old town and seeing the things we missed, Matt and I decided to ascend one of the large church's towers to get a nice view of the city.  Not a lot to say in this post, but here are some pretty pictures of Dresden from a bird's eye view.

Here we are atop the church spire!

A view of part of Dresden's cityscape with some nice sun poking through the clouds.  You can see the black sandstone towers that are commonplace in Dresden (the sandstone turns black over time from absorbing sun and other airborne elements).

A zoomed in view of one of the many towers that are all around the city.

There are many bridges across the Elbe in Dresden, some more modern than others.

More posts to come momentarily!

Into the Heide

If there is one thing that Germany is famous for, it is their forrests.  We decided that enough time had been spent in cities, and it was high time to check out the woods.  But first, how to get there?  As with all logistical questions so far on the trip the answer was of course, public transit.  After studying both the train/bus map as well as a handy pocket street map (paper GPS for those of you who are super plugged-in) we determined that it was easy enough to hop on the train near Peggy and Thomas' house and then snag a bus a little closer the Elbe.  To get across the river it is possible to take the bus as well, but seeing as we were face to face with "The Blue Wonder" we decided to burn some calories and hoof it the rest of the way.  Now some of you may be thinking, "what the devil is the blue wonder?"  Good question.  Until a few days ago I had never heard of the thing myself.  But first, some folklore (or perhaps common knowledge might be more accurate) of the German variety. 

In Saxony (the name for the region of Germany in which Dresden resides), there is a term known as a 'blue wonder', which in essence is something unexpected that makes you take a step back, perhaps utter some colorful metaphores, sctratch your head and think, "there's something that doesn't happen every day".  One might compare it similarly to the expression in english of a blue moon.  And now back to the story.

Well, the Dresdners built this bridge so they could, like, you know, cross the river and stuff.  Maybe the boatman who operated the ferry was mean or they just got tired of swimming the thing, who knows.  Anyway, according to legend, when the bridge was finished they painted it green, but it for whatever reason, be it oxidation of the paint, aliens or voodoo magic (I'm not saying it was aliens... but it was aliens), the green bridge one day turned blue.  Thus, the bridge was in more ways than one a 'blue wonder'.  Ever since, they've painted it blue, gave it the name Blue Wonder and there was much rejoicing.

Here is a view from the Blue Wonder of the Elbe and the lovely houses on the other side.  Also, the side of my head.

Once we made it to the other side of the river, we headed uphill towards the Heide (the forrest) and found a quaint little cobblestone path leading into some houses etc.  Now, these houses were very, very nice with lovely little gardens and historic plaques and such things of that variety; the high rent distric if you will.  Turns out, the path gets wicked steep and was quite a workout to traverse, leading Matt and I to believe that this would be less than ideal to use in the winter or fall or really under any seasonal or weather related condition that would cause it to be slippery, which considering the climate would be like 80% of the time.  

An example of the quality housing we were hiking past.  You may be able to see some of the red flowers on the left side of the picture.  The Germans often have wonderful gardens in lieu of a lawn.  Also note the path we were walking on in the foreground.  The slope was roughly 45 degrees.  We later realized that some of the residences were only accessable via said path and being as some of those who live here are elderly it seemed to me like a hip insurance nightmare senario.

As we hit the plateau of the hill we came across Zeppelin Street (strasse auf Deutch).  Yes, as in Graf von Zeppelin the famous nobleman; he was kind of a big deal.  This further cemented the reality that some of these folks might in fact also be proud owners of brand new VW Phaetons and or monocles (insert over-the-top rich guy laugh here).

Once we crested the hill it was easy walking all the way to the forrest.  Very much like the forrests of home, it did not disappoint.  The major difference was that here in Germany the 'paths' could be considered streets by some standards.  Very well ordered and maintained, the trailmanship (I know, it's a stretch) left nary a branch to be swatted out of the way.  The other thing I was struck by was just how OLD the forrest and the trails were; even the little creeks running through had their own stone trenches to trickle in which were established enough to accumulate wear from erosion.

Check out the 'trails'.

Beautiful evergreens were everywhere and made me a tiny bit homesick.

If you look closely, you can see that the stream is in fact running through a stone canal/trench; this was true of all the running water we came across in the Heide.

Every so often you stumble upon a little wooden shanty looking building with a picknick table out front.  Very handy in case of sudden onset of bad weather or hunger.

After a few solid hours of hiking in the woods, it was time to turn around and head back towards the city so we wouldn't be late for dinner.  Magdalena, Stefan and family had invited us over to their place that evening for some immensely tastey German cooking (I forget the name but it involved a ton of cheese, dough pieces, fried onions and bacon cooked together in a casserole dish).  Once we made it back out of the forrest, Matt, with his knack for keen observations (a talent that has come in handy more than once this trip) saw signs for a cog-rail train that could take us down the hill.  After a brief discussion we agreed that it sounded like a grand old time, and much safer than walking back down the cobblestone path so we set out to find it.  As it turned out, the weekly passes we had purchased to get around the city's public transportation system were also valid on the train, so it did not cost us additionally.



This is your sign.

After a brief search we found the entrance to the cog railway.

Our ride to the bottom.

Down we go!

After sharing a short trip in the rail car with some old folks, one perturbed baby and his tired mama, we made to the bottom.

My dear friend and trusty travel companion Matt had one more great idea before we headed back into the city. You see folks, Matt had a hankerin'; this time for an iced coffee and as tends to happen with hankerin's, once he shared this information with me, I too was in dire need of an iced coffee.  But do they even have iced coffee in Germany?  I was skeptical because they don't even have iced water.  However, since the cog train had shaved some time off our journey back to base we endeavored to investigate.  It wasn't long before we noticed that almsot directly across the street there just so happened to be a little cafe/bakery; so we went in.  Much to our joy we found on the menu "eis kaffee" which sounded about as close to "iced coffee" as we could have hoped for, so we ordered two.  However, we did not get iced coffee as we know it in the US.  This tastey treat was more like a coffee float.  There was vanilla icecream in the bottom with coffee poured over it, topped off with a steamed cream dollop.  Needless to say, it was amazing.  Saddly, by the time it dawned on us to take a picture of this pleasant surprise we had already consigned it to its digestive fate :).  With our legs rested and our spirits renewed we jumped on the 61 bus and rode it all the way back to our home station where we proceded to Magdalena and Stefans for yet more yummy eats. 

I will be posting about our other Dresden adventures soon.  Tomorrow we head to the city of Erfurt to visit our old friend Toby for the day.

Until next time,

John and Matt

The Volkswagen Factory

Unbeknownst to us, Dresden is the home of Volkswagen's "transparent factory" where they make the company's most ungodly luxurious vehicle, the Phaeton.  After learning that this particular factory encourages the public to visit, and even has a cafe and lounge, we decided we had to have a look.

This is just a small piece of the factory.  The large tower you see here is FULL of the Phaeton cars waiting to be picked up in person by their buyers.  Starting at around 128,000.00 euros, this bad boy is no joke.

Here is the main entrance to the factory.  As you can see, the entire building is glass, that way the public can look in and see the cars being made (that they will probably never be able to afford).

 

The Phaeton in all of its exterior glory.  This thing is truely insane; everything from the grain of the wood in the interior matches up (the wood by the way comes from the root or trunk of various trees).  The Phaeton is so blasted luxurious it is almost sickening.  I for one would be scared to sit in the thing less I dirty the varnish.  The seats are so sophistcated that they have over a dozen comfort adjustment settings and a heat vent complete with ultra quiet fans to keep you from getting that anoying back sweat (not that you would because the climate control is like something out of a Gene Roddenberry novel).

 

In the Lounge area they had on display an older model GTI that is on loan from one of the employees.  Despite being old, this car is in immaculate condition.  Not a lot in the way of bells and whistles but personally, I found it to be much more to my taste.  All in all, the factory and the cars were very impressive if a touch on the obsenely nice side.

 

Oops! One more from Geneva.

I found some pictures from our visit to Yvette's coworker's going away party that I thought I should post before I forget as it was quite a memorable visit, it'll be a quick update I promise.  We took a bus nearly to the end of the runway at the Geneva airport to a spectacular swiss home. 

The home of the party host was very charming.  It included a pool, hot tub, suana, ping pong, outdoor speakers for music, and my personal favorite, a lovely view of the planes landing at the airport :)

Yvette and Matt enjoying a swim in the pool

Most of the gang poolside

The view around the house

I couldn't resist!  They were landing at almost a plane every two minutes.  Heaven!

Dresden!

Ok so finally here is an update for Dresden.  After getting on the 9:14am train out of Geneva we arrived in Dresden at roughly 8:30pm last Wednesday, where we were met by a smiling waving cousin Peggy; and so, the adventures in Dresden commenced!

A view from the train as we entered Dresden

After catching up with the rest of the family and meeting for the first time baby Emma (and playing with ever-growing Colin) we were treated to a nice relaxing meal of potato soup with German style salads.  It was delicious!  The next couple days consisted of getting our bearings in the city and figuring out the public train/bus system (which is highly efficient) and seeing some of the 'old town' and 'new town'.  Due to the massive destruction of the city from fire bombing during World War II, the 'old town' actually has more modern buildings in it, as they had to be rebuilt entirely, whereas 'new town' while being newer in terms of date settled has more historic buildings.  During the rebuild (which took some 40 or so years in some parts) they did a fine job of matching the style using sand stone. 

Yours truely, surveying the scene.

A statue of the "August the Strong" first king of Saxony and a local legend.

One of the beautifuly rebuilt buildings in Dresden's 'old town'.  Note: the sand stone turns black after a while giving the city a very contrasting character when combined with the gold statues and trim that are found on most historic buildings. 

Another view of the old town historic district.

Being as Dresden is nestled squarely around the Elbe river, there are many boats that frequent the waters, such as this steam boat which adds some flare to the character of the city.

A few more shots from old town.  Unfortunately, we have such an abundance of pictures of this part of the city it would be a bit much to post them all on the blog.  There may be a few more in following posts as we pass through this part of the city frequently on our way to other attractions.

After making it over the bridge into new town, we decided to end our day at a little cafe we found on the corner of the pedestrian mall.  There were children cooling off in the fountain and many Dresdners sitting around us who had the same idea.  After a round of German Erdinger we made our way back to base.  More to come!

Until next time,

John and Matt