So where was I. Oh yea, skip Berlin. But if you do go make sure that you purchase the; tram u-bahn, etc., ticket. They´ve got tram Stasi that are pretty militant about having a ticket. (We saw them escort someone off the train on our first day).
Onto Dresden. We stayed at the very nice "Gausthof Hauber" which is about 20min´s outside the city by tram. The hostess, Alexandra, and one of her wait staff, Saskia, made the stay even nicer. Saskia studied english in school until recently, and Alexandra studied it some years ago. They were both very happy to have a chance to practice their English on us, and they managed to get a couple of laughs at (our expence) trying to teach us a little German.
We took the obligatory river cruise, (don´t bother unless you like river cruises) or are looking for a somewhat restful hour or so. The Pillnitz castle was another, here´s one location but there´s 4 museums and we´re going to charge you for each one.
Dresden is very nice and there´s a fair amount the see but, Meissen is even better. If your looking for a slow paced, truly medieval town with cobbled squares, little shops, and (at least at the restaurant that we ate in), wonderful food, and a big castle, this is the place. If you have extra luggage room, (fortunately we don´t) you can always get yourself a little Meissen porcelein too. I say little because the big pieces will cost you. Anyway, we´re off to Prague this morning. Why? Cause the train runs that way, and with the current state of the airlines I think we´re going to be riding the rails for awhile. So, it´ll be Prague for a couple of days and then we´ll work our way south, hopefully to switzerland to look for a train that´ll take us over the alps into Italy. Then italy for a while then, who knows, we found a 7 night Nile river cruise that looks interesting too.
So until the next time
TTFN