Marc's Public Blog - Trips to other locations

From Nürnberg, we had to get to Berlin for my conference, and Dresden was on the way, so we spent a day there, but sadly it was a monday when most museums were closed (then again, our partial day in Dresden was pretty full as is, so we'd have had to add a 2nd day for the extra museums anyway).
We took an early train at 07:30 from Nürnberg and had a 4H trip to Dresden, including a dicy train change that ended up working out as our train arrived late for the 3mn connection but thankfully the other train waited 2mn for us to let us transfer and make it. We arrived around 11:30, put our luggage in a locker, and went out in Dresden for a city walk under the rain.
That day also turned out to be German Unity Day, so there were both festivities under the rain, a fair amount of people protesting about various things, and lots of police everywhere to ensure there would not be any terrorist acts. It was a bit weird but I can't blame the Germans for being worried at this point.
Dresden was also heavily bombed during the war, most buildings had been rebuilt already:

the way from sorrow to violence is shorter than from Dresden to Heidenau

Frauenkirsche

poor church was reduced to rubbles

Art wall on fuerstenzug

sadly the celebrations on theatreplatz were kind of wet

lovely touring weather

We then went in the main museum that thankfully was not closed that day: Residenzschloss in Dresden. I has a famous "green vault" where the most valuable artifacts are stored, and for which we had a reservation. The items are stored in a vault where as expected no pictures were allowed. It was a nice collection, but it was a bit annoying that they made it that special and with those extra requirements. On the plus side "the new green room" inside the main museum had artifacts that were just as nice, where access was not restricted, and where pictures were allowed:

nautilus shell

coconut shell

The 3rd floor of the museum had other collections:

Nice coin collection:

The nearby church was accessible via a special access path for royalty, but because we weren't royalty, we were not able to use it:

when the museum closed at 18:00, we had a quick look at the nearby museum complex that was closed, and went back to the train station to catch the last direct 2H train to Berlin: