Our 2nd day in Dresden

We woke up early and started our day because Marisa had to leave for the wedding at 1.00 pm. We saw many sites. When she went to the wedding I was your typical tourist and took the double decker tour bus throughout Dresden. I loved it. I had to wear head phones though so I could hear the English version.

I saw the Zwinger Museum, the glass car factory, many churches, the Great Garden and Park, huge castles, many neighborhoods (some very wealthy) and other wonderful sites....

On my tour I learned...

- Dresden was bombed and destroyed on February 13th and 14th 1945 during WWII and burned for 5 straight days.

- Hitler's command center was not touched (of course) but his sister's home, next door to him was destroyed and demolished to ashes.

- The reason many of the buildings are so dirty now is because the stones and materials to rebuild these places have the original stones. Some of the materials made it through the war so the city tried to use as much as of the original stone as possible.

- Dresden as a community of volunteers began to rebuild residential areas first before monuments.

- After the war, if you rebuilt your home within a year, you were exempt from taxes for 15 years.

- There was only one bridge not destoyed in WWII, it was the Blaues Wunder Bridge. Two local residents actually cut the explosive lines that Hitler's troops put under the bridge. The two Dresden locals saved the bridge.

Unbelievable.