Another day in Vienna

This describes the Saturday we spent with Judith, my Viennese friend. (Photos to be added later.)

We arranged to meet at our hotel and did so. We had seen the nearby Naschmarkt before, but Judith took us there again, to start with, knowing (as we did not) that a flea market opens there on Saturdays. Judith discovered a coral pink vintage bead necklace of some value, haggling for it. Chris was taken with the antique postcards and old books for sale, but didn't buy any. These stalls were a collector's dream, with antique cameras for sale, toys, machinery parts, porcelain ornaments, glass vases, shaving brushes, musical instruments, hats, collectable dinnerware sets, old books, model cars, LPs, you name it. It was noisy and crowded and doubtless we could have spent hours here. Judith drew our attention to the Jugendstil facades of the buildings around the market square along the Linke- und Rechte Wienzeile, such as Otto Wagner's fin de siècle Majolikahaus with its colourfully patterned tiles between the windows. We learned a good deal about Wagner's architectural legacy:

For the [Viennese] transport system he designed the Stadtbahn pavilions, the stations, several bridges and the railings, all of which are still preserved in their original state.  (www.austria.info)

Judith pointed out several examples of these features during our tour of the city that day. Her area of professional expertise is the Gemeindebau: long term affordable community housing in Vienna, which, (like the creation of British council house estates, "homes for heroes") began shortly after the 1st World War and still continues, earning the admiration of the world and appreciation of the Viennese people. The entrances to apartment blocks erected after the 2nd World War are often decorated with concrete or terracotta reliefs from those days. (Made aware, we noticed more of these on the Sunday morning, after Judith had left us.) Residences near the Donaukanal are desirable and the right to live there can be transferred from one generation of a family to the next.

We took an U-Bahn train from Kettenbrückengasse across the Danube, to see the Hundertwasserhaus (finished in 1985) on the Löwengasse, which happened to be near the district where Judith grew up and went to school. Friedensreich Hundertwasser, aka Friedrich Stowasser, was an eccentric and prolific artist of the same ilk as Gaudi, in Barcelona. In a leaflet advertising the Hundertwasser cafe, the English translation reads:

This is the house where for the first time in history human beings and nature live together with equal rights [...] a place where millions of people from around the world become aware of their longing for a life in harmony with oneself and nature. From here they take new hope back to their homes in their countries.

A rather over-the-top claim perhaps, but the colourful buildings entwined with plants and with a waterfall cascading from the roof of one do leave a favourable impression! As a tourist, you are not allowed to enter these buildings because they are people's homes.

I was even more interested when Judith took us to the Real-Gymnasium on Kundmanngasse where she was educated; the Wittgensteins' residence (the original family house, or palace, was near the Karlskirche though) was visible from the classroom windows at the back, she told us; she also showed us the school's pillars and balcony outside her final classroom there. We had a Viennese lunch out of doors at the pub Zum Goldenen Löwen. Judith chose Kartoffelpuffer and I tried the Eiernockerl, tasty and satisfying. Then we hopped on a bus to the Rotundenbrücke over the Donaukanal, stood on that bridge and saw a jetboat (express catamaran) whooshing by on its way to Bratislava.

Later we took a ride on another boat down this canal from the docks, tickets for which had been booked before we left Ottawa, boarding at Schwedenplatz where Chris and I had stood the day before. There's another boat nearby, Vienna's Badeschiff, with an on board public swimming pool and "football cage" on the deck above. On our canal cruise, we noticed more of Otto Wagner's Jugendstil railings, bridges and original city railway. The colourfully painted waste incineration tower, the Fernwärmewerk building, overlooking the canal in Spittelau, was designed by Hundertwasser and so resembled the house we'd seen earlier.

Off the boat, with Judith to guide us, we strolled back into the old town, passing an old Jewish synagogue (the Stadttempel, inscribed in Hebrew characters) on the Seitenstettengasse, on the way to one of Vienna's old catholic churches, a not too lavishly decorated, narrow building above a pretty square, steps up to it, Maria am Gestade. The name means Mary-On-The-Shore because, originally, this mostly 14th and 15th century, Gothic building was closer to the river (which got diverted in the 16th century when the canal was made), a place of worship for sailors. This church was associated with a good man, the patron saint of Vienna, no less, Clement Maria Hofbauer, a baker who at the end of the 18th century became a hermit and then a Redemptorist priest, whom the authorities persecuted but whom his congregations loved, as did the poverty stricken people whom he fed.

The solemn atmosphere in this church made seemed to complement my other friend's (Barbara's) Lutheran protestant church in Luneburg, still fresh in my mind.

Then on the underground again back to the Karlsplatz district near our hotel, where we walked to the Dritte Mann Museum on Preßgasse (Chris' choice of museum but it fascinated all three of us). Judith had not visited this before but had seen the movie when young. We were the last visitors of the day and lucky to get in because it is only open on Saturdays. This was a marvellous museum, divided into three sections, each of which has its own tour guide who needs to let you in with a key. The first set of rooms was dedicated to the people concerned with the making of The Third Man, the actors (Orson Wells and Joseph Cotten had previously starred together in Citizen Kane), the director (Carol Reed) and of course, the famous author of the screenplay, Graham Greene. The film was a tremendous example of purposeful artistic co-operation, as was the museum, for that matter, its well over 2000 exhibits having been collected and put together by a team of only two people, Gerhard Strassgschwandtner and Karin Höfler ...

Alles aus einem Guss, kein Outsourcing, viel Herzblut. Das spurt man.

In the second section, we saw the original zither that  Anton Karas, the composer of the Harry Lime theme, had played. You can see cigarette burns on it, as he was a heavy smoker. This area also displayed an original Zeiss projector, made in 1938, such as was used when the film first appeared. The curator actually used it, lowering a heavy screen from the ceiling, to show us a clip from the end of the film—the chase into the sewers—so gripping that we were oblivious to the primitive technology while watching it. The third part of the exhibition dealt with Viennese history just before, during and after the war, when the city had become an occupied territory, divided into American, British, French and Soviet zones, only connected of course by those sewers that play such an important part in the plot of The Third Man. We were so absorbed by the exhibits here that, at closing time, we had to be asked to leave.

We ate a tasty supper at the Thai Kitchen on Schönbrunner Strasse before Judith said goodbye.

I ought to add that before leaving Vienna altogether, we spent some of the Sunday morning exploring the part of the city near the Hauptbahnhof. Before we caught our train to Bratislava, we took a walk around the 18th century Belvedere Palace, just a short walk from the station, where we left our luggage in a locker.

My friend Sue commented on a photo of the Belvedere Gardens, that I posted on Facebook:

Hitler had a bunker built here, right under this pond. It was completed in 1944, and was to be used in case Berlin fell. It was to be one of he possible structures of command for a government in exile. The central air raid police command post of Vienna moved in. The Belvedere became a military target and was bombed by the allies. By this time the paintings had long since gone. They were hidden in convents, and salt mines. After the war, the bunker was sealed up. I did not find this information while we visited the Belvedere. Instead it appeared in the book The Lady in Gold about the returning of Klimt's famous painting to its rightful Jewish owners. In the book there are photos of the bunker being built in 1943. Quite the story!

On our last walk in Vienna we passed the colourful row of houses on the Wiedner Gürtel, the ringroad near the station, one of which now belongs to Huawei. The creator of these facades, Marcus Geiger, chose colours that mimic Euro banknotes of different denominations.

In Bratislava

Staying at the Mercure hotel near the station, we had a less than half hour walk to the centre of the city. The first time we did this walk, we paused at the Grassalkovich Palace (Grasalkovičov palác) gardens on Hodžovo Square, the palace, built in 1760, now the Slovak President's residence, being a place where Haydn once performed his music, and on the Michalska, the narrow street below the tower known as St. Michael's Gate, for a ginger and mint lemonade made from the raw ingredients, which was life-savingly refreshing. I shall remember this recipe. I had a slice of poppy-seed strudel with it. We walked along the Promenade on the Danube's northern banks that afternoon, difficult in the full heat of the day, but worthwhile. Many cruise ships, long boats, are moored there, disgorging crowds of tourists into Bratislava's streets and squares. On both sides of the river are artificial sandy "beaches" with deckchairs, a pleasant amenity for children and adults alike. We went as far as the Eurovea, a modern shopping mall exactly like shopping malls the world over, with American shops, just beyond the Stary Most (most means bridge, in this case for pedestrians and trams), buying a necessary bottle of water.

Slovak words I learned in Bratislava:
ulica = street
namestie = square
hlavne = central
hrad = castle
garáž = garage
stanica = station
Dunaj = Danube
pivo = beer
voda = water
Ďakujem (pronounced jackoo-yem) = thank you!

The following day, after walking to the castle on the hill, and then down into the city, we followed much the same route, but crossed the river too, staying a long while on the shady far side, me lying on a park bench under a beautiful lime tree, gazing up at the sky. We had to take things slowly in that heat. In the Hviezdoslavovo Square were rows of water features with chlorine scented fountains where I, like many other people, took off my shoes to let my feet soak in a cool bath. At the theatre end of the square as well as in the older, central square, the municipality has provided a water spraying arch that cools passers-by with a fine spray, a considerate gesture. Everybody made a beeline for this, the little children in particular. I watched two toddlers go through, of different nationalities. One little boy said "Voda!" and the other one said "Kalt!" In the evening a group of young Japanese girls in school uniform went discovered the spray and didn't want to leave it.

I mentioned Bratislava's castle, above. The Slovak Parliament is adjacent to it. The history of the castle (and country itself) is terribly complex. We did some internet research, but are not much the wiser. The overwhelming point seems to be that its regime kept changing hands. The Celts were here from about 450 BC till the 5th century AD, with about 300 years of Roman rule during that time. In the forecourt to the castle today is a statue of Svatopluk the Great of the 9th century, on his rearing horse, brandishing his sword. In 805, a fortress was built by this Moravian king, recycling Roman bricks. Stephen the 1st of Hungary used the place as protection from Czech-German attacks in the 11th century, and in the following century a stone palace was built, where the Crusaders under Barbarossa were housed. In 1241 came an attack from Mongol invaders, but the Hungarians beat them off! Then followed some complications involving King Sigismund and the Holy Roman Empire. In 1536, Turkish invaders threatened the stronghold, whereat the Hungarians fled to Buda. In the century after that, a Baroque palace was constructed on the hill; we took a look at the very recent reconstruction of its formal garden. Queen Maria Theresa, ruler of the Austro-Hungarian empire, chose to live here in 1740, but the 19th century saw her palace fall into ruins, after it had been used as barracks for some 1500 soldiers. It was the 1960s before the building was restored. The intellectual elite of Czechoslovakia had been sent into exile by the Nazis, while Bratislava / Pressburg became German. On May 9th, 1945, the Red Army marched into Prague, after which everything changed again; they were ruled by the Soviets. You can still see Soviet-style concrete architecture here and there and as in Wien they have coloured the fronts of some buildings to mitigate the stark, utilitarian look. Slovakia, the Slovak Republic, didn't become an independent state until 1993, the treaty being signed in Bratislava Castle.

The old part of Bratislava is postcard pretty; because of that, it's packed with summer visitors: people on package tours following their guide, backpacking students abroad. It has cobbled streets and squares, handicapping the cyclists, but they ride through even so. On the corner of Panska Street near the central square is a comical bronze sculpture that tourists flock to see, called Man at Work, his head and shoulders emerging from a manhole: Čumil in Slovak, meaning "the watcher"---he's looking up at passers-by who might well trip over him, certainly not working. Bratislava girls seem to be fashion conscious, slim and pretty, so they may well be the ones who are making him grin.

For our full day in the city I took the precaution of going back to the hotel for a nap and change of clothes before setting out again in the evening to meet Marina, a lady I'd befriended in Ottawa about 10 years ago, from the diplomatic corps. She and her husband are currently posted in Moscow, but she happened to be visiting her twin sister Bety, who lives in Bratislava. The sister's husband, Dr. Svaetopluk Zeman, is a native of Bratislava and very knowledgeable about its history, which Chris was interested to hear, as they walked ahead of us women from our rendezvous (the fountain in front of the National Theatre) towards the restaurant on a side-street where we were to have a tasty Slovakian supper. I ate pirohy (perogies) with a vegetarian filling, very tasty, and we drank beer. Before saying goodbye to our friends we also stopped for dessert at another restaurant, in both places sitting out of doors, the summer evening very pleasant as the heat began to diminish. The historic buildings are floodlit.

I feel I haven't done justice to Bratislava in my description of it; it would require a longer visit to take everything in, of course. In the distance across the Danube you can see its industrial side, flames spurting from the tall chimneys of the oil refinery there.

Hannover to Vienna

(Pictures to be added later!)

On July 26th we were up before 6am at our hotel, taking a taxi to Hannover airport (HAJ) for breakfast, and to catch the 08:20 Eurowings / Austrian Airlines flight t ho Vienna. We were just over an hour in the air, pulling into the gate at Vienna airport (VIE) by 9:45. Chris' colleague was sitting in the row behind ours; we'd seen him the evening before, at his Richtfest (completion of new house construction party), sharing barbecued sausages and drinks on his building site at a village called Isernhagen. When we landed in Vienna the three of us shared a taxi into the city. The men left me with our luggage at the Holiday Inn Vienna City on Margaretenstraße, and went away to work.

It was still too early to access a room there, so I asked for a street map, left the luggage at the reception desk, and after exploring the few blocks around the hotel walked in the direction of the city centre (half an hour's walk away), buying a classic Viennese coffee at the Opera House en route. I had to cross the Karlsplatz and the inner ring road (Kärntnerring) before reaching the pedestrian zone. Kärntnerstraße is the main thoroughfare for tourists in the city, far too many of them if you ask me, although I am one and behave like one. My lunch was breaded plaice that looked like Schnitzel, with vinegary, yellow potato salad at the Wienerwald restaurant. In these crowds, I was left unmoved by the interior of the Stephansdom, even though I have heard Schubert's Mass in G performed there in the past (in 1991). The spire is impressive. I ought to have realised, but didn't, that the cathedral was all but destroyed in World War II and rebuilt afterwards, so what I was seeing was effectively a fake cathedral. Horse-drawn coaches were waiting for hire round the back. Baroque residences line the narrow streets, the Gassen, and the squares.

Having got my bearings I returned to the hotel to check in and take a rest in our room. Before Chris was due "home" from work, I had time to visit Schubert's Sterbehaus (the place where he died) on the Kettenbruckengasse, just round the corner from our hotel. It is only open on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and even then only for a few hours, so I was lucky to get in. I paid 4 euros; except for the receptionist (with whom I had a long conversation in German) I had the whole place to myself. Schubert lived in this small apartment, in what might now be called a bed-sit, for the last three months of his life, when he was already seriously ill, and perhaps knew it. His room was the only bedroom in his brother's place. Ferdinand Schubert, his wife and four young children shared the other, larger room. Imagine the noise and the squalor. There was no piano there, although Ferdinand acquired one later, having sold some of his brother's posthumous compositions, publishing a Requiem in his own name, for example, which ressembles Mozart's history. Franz Schubert worked on some of his best known works during his three months of suffering, the sublimely profound B-flat piano sonata, for example, and the astonishingly cheerful songs Hirt auf dem Felsen (for which I saw a scribbled sketch of the clarinet part in the middle section) and Taubenpost. Most touching for me was the thought that he also revised Part II of Winterreise here, which Chris and I have been studying for 16 years now. I imagined Schubert trying to concentrate on this work, or gazing out of the third floor window into the street, or seeing the sky from his narrow bed in this narrow room. For the last week of his life he could not eat without vomiting, typhus finally finishing him off, and I saw a letter he'd written to a friend, asking him to please send a few books to read to take his mind off it; he had been enjoying a translation of The Last of the Mohicans, by Fenimore Cooper. He was 31. After his death, his father, an immigrant from Moravia, hoped that Franz and Beethoven could be buried side by side, as they had been friends.

Unfortunately, Chris returned from work too late to see that museum. I also discovered the nearby Naschmarkt before his return and we were both there later, and on the following two mornings. It's a very long street market, with stalls selling fruit and vegetables, nuts, spices, cheap clothing, souvenirs, hot snacks ... not unlike a Chinese street market, in fact. On Saturdays a large area of the market sells "antiques"---becomes a flea market, with an awesome variety of jumble for sale, very old cameras and 100 year old postcards, for instance. The Naschmarkt is surrounded on both long sides by prestigious Viennese buildings with Jugendstil-decorated facades. On Friday night we stood here, after the market stalls had closed and been locked up, with a small crowd of other hopefuls (making friends with someone's little dog), to see if we could view the moon eclipse, but distant thunderclouds got in the way.

A heavy thunderstorm prevented us from meeting Marcus in town on our first evening in Wien. As it eased off we scurried to the Bamboo restaurant a couple of doors down the street, for an Asian buffet supper.

On Friday, Chris was mostly free, so we could explore the city together. On the edge of the Karlsplatz, a big traffic and public transport hub near the opera house, is the Secession building dating from 1898 with its fancy golden dome, a fin de siecle art nouveau (aka Jugendstil) exhibition hall. The artists' credo of those days was freedom of expression --- Der Kunst ihre Freiheit! --- and Wien's most famous artist, Gustav Klimt, was their first president. Nowadays the building is mostly used to showcase contemporary art---we viewed a series of 40 photocopies of a box of tissues, a knot symbolically made of glass and a computer mining for bitcoins!---but in the basement you can still see the Beethovenfries by Klimt, a tribute to Beethoven's 9th Symphony, apparently, although what it had to do with Beethoven I couldn't tell. Beethoven as interpreted by Wagner, actually. I found it peculiar in the extreme. All the figures represented something: suffering humanity (naked), a knight in golden armour, Ambition, Compassion, a Choir of Angels, and on the other wall the feindliche Gewalten, hostile forces, represented by the giant Typhoeus with his staring eyes and his provocatively naked daughters the Gorgons, flanked by Sickness, Madness, Death, Lasciviousness, Wantonness and Intemperance, all female ... I felt it was a rather sexist view, and couldn't take the monster seriously because he looked so like the Gruffalo. We sent a 3-D postcard of his part of the frieze to our grandson Thomas.

Over an outdoor lunch, I rang Mum to wish her a happy 99th birthday the following day. Then to the Mozarthaus, a cut above poor Schubert's bedsit; the Mozarts lived in such style for less than three years, though (1784 to 87). It had a flamboyant ceiling in what was probably the bedroom and we saw the rooms where Mozart had possibly played billiards and had probably held impromptu chamber music performances, but no one can be quite sure. The Marriage of Figaro was composed here. Again, I imagined a composer who gazed out of the windows down the cobbled Gasse with its tall houses, near the cathedral, doubtless a smellier and less tidy street in those days.

We walked as far as the bank of the Donaukanal, passing the Urania planetarium and a permanently moored boat with a public swimming pool and football court on board. Then a long walk back in the blazing sun, through the old Stadtpark with its Joseph Strauß statue and ponds, and recovered from that walk at a table in a cafe near the Karlsplatz. The Baroque Karlskirche, which Sue in Ottawa had recommended I see, was unapproachable with a stage being constructed on its front steps for some sort of amplified evening entertainment.

On Saturday, we spent the day with a real present day resident of Wien, my friend Judith, born and bred here, and I think this had better be the subject of another blogpost.

Bratislava to Dresden

I'm writing this on Intercity Train Number 172, the "Hungaria", on its way from Budapest to Hamburg. Our destination for today is Dresden. We're in the front coach, in First Class seats, just having crossed the Austrian-Slovak border once again (starting in Bratislava, we re-entered Austria briefly travelling towards Wien at the start of the journey, but are now heading north). It's going to be a ride through flat landscapes for most of the way *, as we could see when we flew south from Hannover to Wien, last Thursday. An Australian couple sitting behind me is going from Budapest to Prague (Praha). The coach is empty enough for us to choose where to sit, even though we had reservations in Seats 53 and 55. Each seat has a small table and electrical sockets, which is nice, and best of all, there's air-conditioning. Outside, another scorching day in the mid-30s C. We have just had to get used to this weather, lately. Ever since Sweden, in fact, two months ago.

* This prediction turned out to be wrong.

First stop, Kúty. Never heard of it. The new passengers are boarding the train from the rail level, as in mid-20th century Europe. The driver has turned off the engine, lights and air-conditioning (they came on again after a few minutes, after the driver announced something incomprehensible). The Slovak Republic, so we now realise, is bordered by Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine and Hungary: all those influences upon one little country. Its history is complex in the extreme. Chris learned a lot of it, yesterday, from Marina's brother-in-law, a lifelong inhabitant of Bratislava. My diplomat friend Marina, from Macedonia, posted in Ottawa about 10 years ago and at that time a member of my German conversation group, has been following our Facebook posts and knew she'd be able to meet me in Bratislava, where she happened to be visiting her sister here. As she is currently resident in Moscow (after a stint in New Delhi), this was a wonderful, unforeseen opportunity to get together. Chris and I met her at the fountain in the long central square called Hviezdoslavovo Namestie, at the National Theatre (opera house) end. Actually it was her twin sister I greeted first, thinking it was her, they look so alike. I had been deliberately teased. The three of them treated us to a wonderful evening sitting out of doors in a quiet side street at a traditional Slovak restaurant, with checked red and white tablecloths over long tables inside, and the waitresses in traditionally embroidered aprons. I had vegetarian pierogies (pirohy) with a mushroom sauce, and beer (pivo); Chris ordered a Viennese Schnitzel since most of the Slovak dishes seemed to contain cheese, which he won't touch. He did have a slice of cheesecake for dessert around the corner, at a different restaurant, but that's sweet, therefore different. This evening was a sort of celebration of our 45th wedding anniversary!

We're now approaching Břeclav in the Czech Republic, and as we meander back and forth across the border, across the Dyje River, the Internet connection on the train comes and goes. The ticket man has just distributed bottles of water to all the 1st Class passengers. Water is voda in all the local languages, an important word to know in this climate. I'm glad I paid the extra 10 euros each (not much extra!) to travel 1st Class on this nearly 7 hour journey. We're now riding through sunflower fields with a steep hill on the horizon.

Nearly midday, and we are pulling into Brno. Brno considers itself the capital of Moravia, originally (a very long time ago) settled by Celts, so that some of the local language apparently ressembles Welsh (c.f. bryn)! It has a two-spired cathedral perched on a rock near its rather ornate, neo-Baroque central railway station (hlavni nadrazi), and a castle on a hill besides.

I have just received a Facebook message from our friend Vladimir in Prague, who'd like to have to seen us and taken us flying in his plane; there just wasn't time. He was in Brno yesterday! ... An hour later, my Facebook update posted between Brno and Prague was immediately "liked" by a friend in Australia. How interconnected we all are!

And now we have had a satisfying cooked lunch in the Bordrestaurant coach, with a glass of Hungarian Chardonnay for me. The land becomes more hilly from time to time, with little towns or villages including churches with onion domes. We are only about 20 km from the Polish border.

"Ladies and gentlemen, our train is now about 20 minutes delayed." No worries, from my point of view, I am enjoying this ride so much. Now stopping at Kolín, getting closer to Praha, Prague.

With several miles of outskirts, Praha looks like a big city, with extensive marshalling yards for the trains. Most other passengers are preparing to leave the train here. Chris and I are starting on the box of chocolates Marina gave us, a gift from Moscow! They're very sweet marshmallows coated with chocolate, so I had better not eat too many. A cleaning lady has come on board to tidy up the train. On the next leg, between here and Dresden, we shall be re-entering Germany. We're pulling out of the station in the opposite direction, having lost the engine at our end of the train. The ticket collector (a different man, this time) is preparing to come round again to check our tickets and distribute the water bottles. Prague looks hot, hazy and hilly, out there. I caught a glimpse of the Vltava, with barges on it, as we crossed it just now.

We followed the Vltava downstream for about an hour, the scenery increasingly interesting. We're now beyond Usti nad Labem, on the Elbe, which is still in the Czech Republic, but approaching the German border, with strange rock formations around us. At Děčín, further down, about to enter a steeper sided valley, the hills covered with trees, we had a longer stop ... and here I had to break off writing my blogpost because we were suddenly told, "This train ends here!" The Hungaria had broken down, or its computer had (I noticed repeated vain attempts to reset the seat number displays), therefore we were obliged to grab our luggage and get out onto the platform, where chaos reigned, nobody knowing what to do next or where to go. I thought I'd heard a garbled announcement that a train to Bad Schönau was waiting on Platform 1 which would connect with an S-Bahn to Dresden, but when we hurried there, down and up all the steps, there was no such train, or it had already left. The departure boards in the concourse were in German and Czech, listing places we'd never heard of, no mention of Bad Schönau. All other notices were only in Czech. Back to Platform 3 to try asking an official, except that Platform 3 turned out to be Platform 2 and we had to repeat the luggage lifting exercise on the steps. The helpless passengers, using various foreign languages, were still milling around getting nowhere. We decided to go back to the concourse, I now literally dripping with sweat because of the heat. Chris told me to stop panicking, so I joined a queue at the information centre, wondering if we'd need new tickets. Apparently not, but we would need to wait a couple of hours. I was given a timetable printout giving the time of our next train to Dresden as 18:05. It was the Berlin train, 30 minutes delayed, so we actually boarded it at 18:40 after waiting on the concourse with the crowd of backpacker students, Chinese families seeing the world and other unfortunates. The little snack shop accepted Visa cards, so that helped (we only had euros in cash, which was not the right currency). I went outside the station to take pictures, during our wait, and we found somewhere to sit.

Wikipedia photo

Děčín, had we had the opportunity to get rid of our luggage and stay the night there, would have been worth exploring, an attractive town in splendid scenery on a curve of the Elbe: the posters calling it České Švýcarsko, the Czech Switzerland. Only 6 km downstream, beyond the German border, the countryside is known as die Sächsische Schweiz (of which I'd already heard). My daughter Emma did this journey with two friends in 1994 when she was a backpacker and tells me these were the most beautiful views from a train she has ever had.

Our 1st Class tickets allowed us into a comfortable part of the Berlin train; the remainder of the journey was only a 45 minute ride, with the splendid views Emma promised us. Our hotel in Dresden is visible from the station so we were checked in by 8 pm, and then set out for supper in the Altmarkt and for a sunset walk around the city centre.