Dresden

During the later half of 2018, I had taken a lot of trips to Eastern Europe. I really like the culture of Eastern Europe. Perhaps the main reason is that I find the 20th-century history of the region fascinating, during the Cold War era. The politics of the period were horrible, but it brought about some unique culture. It was a much different culture and life than we know it today. This is exactly why I find it interesting. I love learning about cultures or history that are very different from my own.

However, after all of these trips to separate countries throughout Eastern Europe, there was still a bit of Cold War history a bit closer to home – in the former East Germany! Of course, Germany is united today. However, the bitter division after World War II still has a few traces in East Germany. The city of Dresden has modernized since the 1990s, and it offers a lot to its visitors. Although Dresden has moved far past its communist days, the city and the surrounding region has several museums and landmarks about the German Democratic Republic. There is also a fascinating former royal castle of the Kingdom of Saxony and other stately buildings. Perfect for a weekend getaway.

FRIDAY, February 1st

I flew with SWISS non-stop from Zurich to Dresden. We had to wait a bit before we were allowed to depart, almost a full 30 minutes behind schedule. This meant that we arrived in Dresden with a delay of about 15 minutes.

I left the airport in Dresden by taking a commuter train to a train station northwest of the city center. From there I rode a tram towards my hotel.

I checked in and unpacked a few things. Afterward, I went for a walk along the riverside all the way towards the Yenidze. As I passed beside the city center, I noticed a lot of fireworks. These were around the Semperoper opera house in downtown Dresden. I would later find out that it was due to the so-called Semper Ball, a dance ball that occurs annually.

The Yenidze, west of the city center, is a mosque-shaped former cigarette factory. It was supposed to be open, which is why I decided to end my walk there. However, it just houses offices and restaurants nowadays. Nothing much was going on seemingly, so I didn’t enter the building. But seeing the unique building from the outside was still worth the walk.

Built in 1909, it was never a religious building although it borrows many design elements from mosques. The idea behind this was to use Oriental design features to honor the Oriental origins of the tobacco that was processed inside, as well as promoting the company.

I had picked out a restaurant for dinner nearby, which was fortunately still open, as it was almost 10 PM. It was relatively quiet inside the restaurant, but the kitchen was still running.

After dinner, I walked back to my hotel. On the way there I passed the Kulturpalast, a performing arts theatre that first opened in 1969 during the German Democratic Republic era. On the side of the building is a large mural, named “Der Weg der Roten Fahne” (The way of the red flag). It was created to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the GDR in 1949. As the name suggests, the mural is full of communist symbols. There is even an East German insignia to the right of the central figure.

Even though the Kulturpalast building has since been renovated and modernized, the mural has been preserved in its original form, which I think is really cool. 

SATURDAY, February 2nd

None of the sights in the city opened up earlier than 10 AM, so I slept in a little bit. Then I had a hearty breakfast at the hotel’s breakfast buffet.

My first sightseeing stop for the day also became the one I personally found most interesting in Dresden. Die Welt der DDR is a museum regarding the era of the German Democratic Republic, also known as East Germany. The museum used to be housed in a large building in the Dresden suburb Radebeul. It has since moved to a space inside a shopping mall, closer to the city center. The fact that it’s inside a shopping mall could confuse you about the size. The museum occupies about half of the first floor.

The sign translates to: “For peace and socialism, onward to the 35th anniversary of the GDR!”. In the background is the flag of the German Democratic Republic.

The World of the GDR, as the museum name translates to, features a large collection of various items from the communist time period. Essentially all aspects of life in East Germany are covered. Items on display were either produced in the GDR or available to its citizens from elsewhere, such as the Soviet Union.

The walking path through the museum begins with a selection of vehicles that were commonly found on the streets of the GDR. Some of these were from the Soviet-built Lada brand. However, most popular within the GDR was the domestically produced Trabant. Although they were produced domestically, East German citizens sometimes had to wait up to several years before receiving a car after ordering one.

In the 1970s, the waitlist for certain Trabant models was about 15 years! The GDR citizens weren’t spoiled for choice, and the Trabant wasn’t known for quality, particularly compared to Western models. However, it had a bit of a cult status, which it still enjoys today as one of the symbols of East Germany.

The next sections of the museum cover medicine and regular household products. It might seem weird to look at vacuum cleaners and blenders in a museum. Because they were produced in East Germany, they are historical. A staple of the planned economy used by the East Bloc countries was serially producing a few, select consumer items according to estimates of need. East Germany was no different. Factories were all publicly owned.

Just like with the cars, the consumer products weren’t high quality nor was the choice great. But most of the products were cheap, even if you sometimes had to wait a while for them to be delivered from the factory. Of course, very few people if any earned a high salary in communist East Germany. So there was no need to produce a lot of luxury or high-end products. The goal was to produce a lot of ordinary, cheap consumer goods for the masses.

East Germany enjoyed one of the highest qualities of living among all the communist East Bloc countries throughout the Cold War. This was in part because the country was already industrialized from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Even if the choice was limited in terms of different models or types of a specific product, the range of consumer goods available to East Germans was still more than adequate. East Germany also never really suffered from famine or food shortages such as the Soviet Union or China did. Food was readily available, even if your choice was somewhat limited here too. Exotic fruits, for instance, were difficult to import and very expensive for most consumers.

Another focus of Die Welt der DDR is on education during the GDR, with a mock classroom inside the museum. The state-censored curriculum of the GDR was more or less equal in all classrooms. The goal of education, beginning already in kindergarten, was to create socialist citizens that benefitted the GDR politically and economically. The education was meant to diminish any ideas of individualism.

After being taught a generalized curriculum through the 8th grade, students could choose between three focus groups: Languages, sciences & maths, or philology/history. There were further specializations within each group. Although these focused curriculums were meant for grades 9-12, there were no high schools as such in East Germany. The first foreign language introduced was generally Russian around the 5th grade. A second foreign language was either English or French after the 7th grade. There was a dedicated mission to promote and assist students who came from working-class families, such as factory workers or farmers, more than other students.

What was really neat was that several books were laid out on the desks of the “classroom” inside the museum. They were placed in a manner that invited you to look inside the books. There were certainly no signs indicating that doing so wasn’t allowed.

I had a look inside a few of the books. Not surprisingly, there was a clear reflection of propaganda in the school materials. This is something I have also seen while traveling in other former East Bloc countries. A geography book explained mostly just the GDR’s communist allies. The book presented facts with an emphasis on industrial output.

One of the history books was really unique. The cover featured an image of Red Army soldiers planting the flag of the Soviet Union on top of the Reichstag parliament building after the Battle of Berlin. The story of World War II was explained with a clear fascists vs. antifascists narrative.

The book tells the story of Nazi atrocities in the occupied Soviet Union. However, the East German history book also omits war crimes committed by the Red Army.

There are also some language books that introduce English and Russian. What I found really special, but not surprising, was that even the language books have a communist theme. Some of the images in the books are showing workers and farmers.

Inside the mock classroom is also a map of both West and East Germany. Even though the students were taught that the way of life in the GDR was better than in the West, there was still an acknowledgement that Germany was a divided country and people during the Cold War.

A few of the place names in East Germany changed their name. The most prominent example is southwest of Dresden, close to the German-Czechoslovak border. Karl Marx, one of the most famous communist philosophers, was born in Germany in the 19th century. East Germany didn’t hold back on celebrating “one of the greatest sons of Germany”. Karl-Marx-Stadt can be seen on the map of East Germany. Today, the city is known as Chemnitz, which is also its original name. The name change occurred between 1953 and 1990.

Another few rooms in the museum deal with kids’ toys and youth culture. The toys themselves aren’t really that much different than children’s toys in the West. However, there are some puzzles with pictures of East German buildings, such as the Palast der Republik. This was the parliament building of the GDR.

What is more unique is definitely all of the youth festivals that Warsaw Pact countries organized. Teenagers from most communist countries and a few participating countries from the west took part in these events. The large youth festivals were held in order to foster a spirit of solidarity and promote world peace.

With the fall of communism, these youth festivals mostly died out. Nothing really compares to it today on an international scale.

There were also some rooms presenting interior design. Again, it might seem weird to look at a 20th-century kitchen or bathroom in a museum. It is the East German style of furniture that makes it worthwhile. Just like with other products, the choices for furniture were limited.

Most people had a similar-looking bathroom at home or used the exact same household appliances. This fact is what makes a visit to Die Welt der DDR a little extra special. Not only is it interesting to see the objects inside, but there will almost certainly be other museum visitors who are locals that grew up in East Germany. A lot of middle-aged and older locals come to the museum to reminisce about the days of the GDR. Some visitors show their young children what their own childhood was truly like. While I was visiting, there was a group of middle-aged women talking to each other, pointing out specific items. I couldn’t help but hear them saying “I remember playing with one of those toys!”, or “our neighbor used to have one of those in the kitchen”. It was pretty neat.

With that being said, the museum doesn’t simply celebrate the GDR. East Germany had plenty of negatives, and the museum also does its part to highlight some of these. The police forces of East Germany are also mentioned. They were perhaps most known for being ruthless in oppressing dissidents. The Stasi, as the Ministry of State Security was known, had around 90,000 full-time employees. They used their employees and up to 200,000 informants to spy on the GDR’s population of about 16-17 million people. The true number of informants is likely much higher, but it’s difficult to find documentation for.

The borders of the German Democratic Republic towards West Germany and West Berlin were closed after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, along with increased security on the common border in the middle of Germany. Border guards were ordered to shoot at would-be escapees, and they regularly did so. Those that were caught alive were imprisoned for up to 5 years. However, around 33,750 people imprisoned in East Germany were bailed out of jail by West Germany. These prisoners were then released to travel to West Germany. Not all of them were imprisoned for trying to escape the GDR, some were imprisoned for political reasons.

The East German authorities were open to these ransom payments. The GDR even actively invited the West German authorities to buy the freedom of prisoners with relatives in the West. There were cases where residents of East Germany were imprisoned for very vague reasons. The GDR knew that they could probably secure a deal with West Germany for these individuals. East Germany essentially profited from human trafficking.

Some of the last parts of the walk through the museum takes you past rows of electronics. Some of these TVs and radios were produced in East Germany, others are imported from other East Bloc countries.

Large parts of East Germany were able to receive West German TV channels by using modified TV antennas. It was commonly known that the West German press was a free press that was a lot more open and truthful than the state-controlled media outlets in East Germany. However, Dresden and the region surrounding the city couldn’t receive the signals from West Germany because of geographical restrictions. It became known as the “Valley of the Clueless”. Most of East Germany outside of Dresden could receive the world news from the West.

The last part of the GDR museum that I am going to mention here is a consumer store. Konsum was a chain of retail stores that already opened shortly after the war had ended, when East Germany was still under Soviet military administration. The mock store inside the museum shows a selection of typical GDR products. There is a price list of state-controlled prices below the storefront. The neon sign is actually a real sign. It used to be mounted on top of an apartment building in Leipzig as part of an advertisement.

After spending several hours at Die Welt der DDR, I took a walk around Dresden’s Neustadt neighborhood. There’s plenty of graffiti and street art to be found in the streets of Neustadt. Some of it is promoted or supported by the city, other parts of it aren’t legal. Although graffiti usually has a negative connotation, the fact that the city has embraced some of it actually allows for some pretty cool street art.

Adding to the artistic decorations in Neustadt is the Kunsthofpassage. It is a handful of linked, inner courtyards which have been given a creative makeover by local artists. Particularly the facades of the buildings are quite unique.

After my walk through the Kunsthofpassage, I had lunch at a cult currywurst shop a couple of blocks away. Essentially there is just one item on the menu, the currywurst! It made for a tasty, quick lunch.

Past lunch I hopped on a tram back to Dresden’s city center, south of the Elbe River. The next point of interest was the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady). It’s one of the city’s main landmarks. The inside has a characteristic round shape. The church was destroyed during Allied bombing attacks in February 1945. It took until 1994 before reconstruction began, completed in 2005.

Dresden was the target of massive bombing raids over several days in mid-February 1945. Approximately 25,000 civilians lost their lives, and up to 90% of the city center was destroyed. The bombing attacks on Dresden were one of the most controversial episodes of the last months of World War II. Allied forces were counting victory after victory on their way to Berlin. It would only be another two months before the Soviet Red Army began shelling the German capital. Nazi Germany was depleted, as it had lost most of its soldiers on the Eastern Front. The German Air Force had relocated most of its planes to the defense of Berlin from the approaching Soviets. Even Hitler had admitted long before then that the war was lost.

Adding to the controversy was the fact that most of the bombs targeted the urban city center of Dresden, instead of some industrial areas in its suburbs. The Allies claim that Dresden was one of the last major urban areas with a large working force. Critics claim that the attack on Dresden served little to no strategic gain for the Allies. Indeed, already in Februrary 1945 it was just a matter of time before the war was over. A lot of Dresden’s cultural heritage was destroyed or damaged by the bombing raids.

The altar of the Frauenkirche consists of almost 2000 fragments, but you can’t really tell. It has been pieced together quite well. A small museum in the basement features some twisted and damaged parts of the original church building, which was built in 1743.

It’s possible to climb to the top of the cupola of the Frauenkirche for views over central Dresden. The view wasn’t great though, as the weather was relatively foggy. However, several of the prominent buildings in downtown Dresden were still visible from the top of the church.  

I continued walking towards Dresden’s Royal Castle. I had a reservation to enter its treasure chamber, the Historisches Grünes Gewölbe. The number of visitors per hour is limited. Although it’s possible to buy a ticket at the castle, particularly during low season, I had pre-booked it online.

I still had well over 30 minutes to go. First, I took a peek inside the Dresden Cathedral which is just next door. This 18th-century church also suffered damage due to the bombing raids and had to be rebuilt.

Next, I entered the Royal Castle, put my snow-covered coat and bag in the wardrobe, and made my way to the treasure chamber. They wouldn’t accept my ticket digitally on a smartphone, as they needed the printed version. I was directed to an office in the corner of the castle, on the outside. The ticket had a 15-minute time window, which was the only time you’d be allowed to enter the Historical Green Vault. Once inside, you could walk around the vault at your own pace.

I was anyway early, so by the time I had a printed-out ticket, it was still 5 minutes before the earliest entrance time on my ticket. I still had to wait it out a little. There are a few items on display right in front of the vault. These are good options for killing the time.

Entering the Historical Green Vault, it doesn’t take long before realizing that the items here are something unique. The name “vault” might be a little misleading. It’s not one large bank vault, rather it consists of several connected rooms behind extra-secure double doors. Inside are different vases, pieces of jewelry, bronze statues, and paintings. Also on display is what was one of the largest collections of precious jewels in Europe at one point. Everything inside was collected by the wealthy royal family that ruled the Kingdom of Saxony up until World War I. The royal family originally put some of their most valued treasures on display in these rooms, to show them to royal guests and visiting diplomats.

All of the items are grouped into different categories, presented in almost a dozen rooms one after another. The rooms themselves are beautifully decorated, with bright colored walls and ceilings. Some rooms feature paintings of the Saxon royal family, some are covered in mirrors all over. The rooms are all rebuilt in a manner as close as possible to what it looked like prior to February 1945. Although the rooms are rebuilds, the items on display are all originals. They were removed and placed in safe storage spaces, several years before Dresden was destroyed by bombing attacks.

Visiting the treasure chamber is spectacular, a must-see when visiting Dresden. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed inside of it. There are several staff members strictly enforcing this rule. I have no photos of my own to share from inside the Historisches Grünes Gewölbe. However, it is spectacular. Although I exclusively share my own images on this website, I’ll make an exception this time. I found the picture below on the official website of the Historical Green Vault. It should give you an idea of what it looks like inside.

There’s another treasure chamber, meant to showcase an even larger spread of items from the collection of the Saxon royals. It’s called the New Green Vault and is also found in the Residenzschloss castle, one floor above the Historisches Grünes Gewölbe.

The items on display here are quite spectacular in their own right. Because they were not on display in the traditional treasure chambers originally, they’re being presented here. There are lots of gold, silver, marble, and jewels on display.

The main difference is that the exhibit rooms in this section are all built like a modern museum, unlike the Historical Green Vault, where the rooms themselves are visually appealing and full of baroque features.

Different military and royal medals from France and Russia awarded to the Saxon kings in the 19th century.

Pictures were allowed, or at least tolerated by the guards, inside this and other sections of the castle’s exhibits.

The Dresden Green Diamond, a 41-carat diamond sourced from India in the 18th-century. It is the most expensive jewel in the collection of the Residenzschloss museum.

There are several other interesting exhibits within the Residenzschloss. One of these included a large space displaying medieval weapons. Think old rifles, swords, shields, and armor.

Particularly some of the swords and the armor were heavily decorated. As such, they were used for parades or special events, rather than actual battles.

Not only were the parade weapons on display. There was also a parade uniform used by Christian II, Elector of Saxony in the late 16th century.

After this, the walk through the castle leads to what is known as the “Turkic Chamber”. When Saxony was part of the larger Holy Roman Empire, many battles were fought against the Ottoman Empire. Some of the war booty captured in battles is on display here. It’s quite a large collection of decorated Ottoman sabers and armor.

The path through the museum’s several floors ends at the Coin Chamber. Here coins and bills from all over the world are on display. Most of the coins are from the Holy Roman Empire era, of which the Electorate/Kingdom of Saxony was a member.

There are also plenty of coins from Celtic kingdoms and the actual Roman Empire. Some of these coins are up to 2,300 years old.

There is a smaller collection of coins sourced from historical empires on most of the world’s continents.

A bit more unique was a collection of East German coins. The first image shows two commemorative coins, with one face showing industries or landmarks of the GDR, in honor of the country’s 25th and 30th anniversaries. The second photo shows three regular Deutsche Mark coins from East Germany.

One of the more special items in the collection is a 5000 ruble note from the early days of the Soviet Union in 1919.

Just next to the Coin Chamber is a former ballroom that now sits empty. However, it’s lavish decorations and large, golden chandeliers make it a stunning sight.

After exploring the royal castle, I went to check whether the Semperoper opera house was open by any chance. According to the signs in front of the building, it was closed. I had noticed that the lights were still on. The front doors were locked, but I walked around the building to one of the exits. Here, I could see people were still inside. I walked inside to ask, and was immediately met by a staff member. He told me that the last tours of the opera house were just wrapping up. I was asked to come back the following day.

At that point, just before 6 PM, no other sights in Dresden were still open. I elected to return to my hotel to rest for a little bit. A few hours later, I went out for dinner in a traditional cellar restaurant called Sophienkeller.

The menu was full of German cuisine, with some local, Saxon dishes as well.

When I had finished eating, I returned to my hotel and went to bed.

SUNDAY, February 3rd

Overnight, snowfall had reached Dresden, and it continued throughout most of the day. After I had breakfast and checked out of my hotel, I left my bag behind at the hotel. Then I got on a bus to Dresden’s main train station, and from there I took a train to Pirna.

The city of Pirna is a 30-minute train ride southeast of Dresden. The only reason I went there was its GDR Museum. There are a few other sights in and around Pirna though. As I said at the beginning of this post, the main reason for going to Dresden was its East German history. That’s what I wanted to focus on.

It was snowing quite heavily, so I took a taxi from the train station in Pirna to the museum. The collection at Pirna’s GDR Museum seemed larger than Die Welt der DDR. The building that houses the museum is a former army barracks that were first used by troops of the Kingdom of Saxony in the 19th century. It was then briefly turned into apartments before the Nazis brought back an army garrison here. The building was also a barracks during the East Germany period.

The original sign in the middle says: “Work colleagues! Prove that you are civilized humans, keep the toilets and wardrobes clean!”. The plastic sign on the bottom is simply a reminder of the museum’s no-smoking policy.

The DDR Museum building in Pirna is a bit more authentic than the shopping mall which houses Die Welt der DDR in Dresden. A select few of the signs are actually originals that were left in place. This, along with the larger collection, meant that I personally liked the DDR Museum in Pirna more. However, Dresden is a larger city that sees more visitors, so the museum in Dresden has significantly more guests.

Although a couple of items were displayed in both museums, there was definitely a lot of new objects and stories to look at. Since I introduced a lot of the items with Die Welt der DDR earlier in this post, I am not going to repeat myself. I’ll focus instead on what was “new”.

Die Welt der DDR featured a few flags and posters. However, the DDR Museum in Pirna had a lot more banners, medals, and political propaganda.

A lot of these are in the form of red flags with party symbols or honoring specific companies or factories. A recurring theme is promoting workers as the “builders of socialism”, such as on the sign above.

There were also numerous medals and pins that were given to loyal party members or exemplary workers. Unlike Die Welt der DDR, the museum in Pirna also had some East German money on display.

What I found particularly interesting at the museum was a significant collection of Interflug memorabilia. It contained aircraft models, posters, and promotional material that the airline used. As an aviation professional and a history geek myself, this was really awesome!

Even plastic trays that were used to serve food on board were on display!

Interflug was the state airline of the GDR. Initially, the pre-war Deutsche Lufthansa of Germany was divided into two, along with the country itself.

The Lufthansa trademark was awarded to the West German company. This made it difficult for the East German version to earn the rights to fly into or over Western countries.

The flag carrier of East Germany was rebranded into Interflug, which started building its own fleet of Soviet-designed aircraft. Based out of Berlin-Schönefeld, Interflug flew mainly charters and scheduled flights to Eastern European destinations.

The airline had operations at other East German airports, particularly flying East German citizens to the Baltic Sea beaches of the northern coast in the summer. These German beaches are still popular today.

However, Berlin’s Schönefeld Airport was popular with people from West Berlin. They used the airline’s cheaper prices to fly to cheaper East Bloc holiday destinations, or even a few destinations serviced in the West. A special checkpoint through the Berlin Wall was set up, specifically to allow West Berliners to transit towards Schönefeld Airport.

Interflug used to have two separate sets of crews. Some were allowed to fly on routes to Western countries, and others were not. To earn jobs with Interflug, pilots and flight attendants had to be members of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the governing party of East Germany.

One of the numerous Interflug posters at the DDR Museum. The top section displays Interflug’s international route map, including several overseas routes.

In order to earn the coveted stamp of approval from the GDR Secret State Police for Western flights, the crew members had to prove their loyalty to the party somehow. Of course, the crews had to fly back on the return flights. Longhaul flights, where the crew might spend a day or two at the destination, provided a rare glimpse of life beyond the Iron Curtain. This was why party loyalty was key for the secret state police. The Stasi knew that this experience of capitalism was unavoidable. Interflug obviously wanted to prevent the crews from escaping overseas, or spread information about the outside world once they returned.

Interflug is still connected to the deadliest air disaster on German soil, when 156 people lost their lives on August 14, 1972. A Soviet-designed Ilyushin Il-62 bound for Bulgaria made an in-flight return to Berlin-Schönefeld due to control problems. A couple of minutes south of Schönefeld, the tail broke off from the Interflug aircraft. It had been weakened from a fire that the crew was unaware of, due to a lack of fire sensors in that section of the aircraft.

An Ilyushin Il-62 model, the aircraft type which crashed in 1972. The accident became known as the Königs-Wusterhausen Air Disaster, named after the town where the plane went down.

Interflug’s last flight departed on April 30th, 1991, after which the company was liquidated, following German reunification. The majority of the employees were absorbed by Lufthansa. Most of the Interflug planes were sold off or taken over by the German Air Force.

East Germany even tried to develop an aircraft industry of their own. A prototype named B-152 was developed by East German aviation engineers in Dresden in the 1950s. However, only four test aircraft were built, as the developers received next to no orders for commercial use.

Almost all aircraft used by Interflug as well as the East German Air Force were built in the Soviet Union. However, after the Soviet Union introduced the perestroika initiative, East Bloc airlines were released from trade embargoes and allowed to purchase Western-built jets. Interflug acquired a few Airbus A310s, which they received in 1989, a couple of years before the airline ceased operations.

The DDR Museum in Pirna also had exhibits related to the Thälmann Pioneers. It is a youth organization for all school children aged 6-14, which can best be summarized as a socialist boy/girl scout organization.

The organization was the East German version of the Young Pioneers of the Soviet Union or even North Korea, whose youth groups are still active today. The Thälmann Pioneers were named after Ernst Thälmann, the pre-war leader of the German Communist Party, who died in a Nazi concentration camp.

Another topic that was covered in some detail at the DDR Museum was East German TV channels and media. They often showed programs glorifying the Soviet Union or even movies that were produced in the USSR.

Much like their Soviet counterparts in Moscow, East German TV crews were assigned to cover military parades in the GDR. Parades took place annually on May 1st as well as October 7th, which was the anniversary of the founding of the German Democratic Republic in 1949.

The DDR Museum in Pirna also occasionally played East German songs as background music. One of the classics was Sonja Schmidt’s “Ein Himmelblauer Trabant” (a sky-blue Trabant) from 1971.

Among other notable items at the GDR museum were original signs used at the country border. 

This particular sign was installed on the border crossing with then Czechoslovakia near Petrovice. It had been removed and came into the private custody of a German farmer. The farmer offered to donate numerous GDR items to the museum in Pirna in exchange for a specific East German-made bicycle. The museum already had most of the items offered by the farmer. However, the sign was unique, so the exchange was made as a win-win for both parties.

After having visited the DDR Museum, I wanted to return to Dresden. The bus schedule on Sundays was quite erratic. I decided on walking towards the train station in downtown Pirna despite the snow. I was hoping to stumble upon a taxi eventually, but that never occurred. Due to the snowfall, the train from Pirna to Dresden was delayed. Actually, I made it there in time without having to wait for more than 5 minutes! If the train had been running on schedule, I most likely would have missed it.

When I made it back to Dresden, I had a quick lunch at a Subway sandwich shop at the main train station. Then I got on a tram towards the city center. My first stop there became the Semperoper.

I joined a one-hour guided tour of the opera house. This is the only way to see the interior without attending a show. It’s a really beautiful building, with a very impressive and picturesque interior, particularly the hallways. The current Semperoper is the third reconstruction of an opera house that has stood here since 1841.

The first opera house burned down in a fire in 1869, and was reopened as the second version in 1878. However, that building didn’t survive World War II. The current Semperoper was rebuilt in 1985. The interior hallways are full of dark marble and colorful wall paintings.

The beautiful chandeliers really provide a nice, picturesque glow that lights up the baroque elements and the white stucco in the hallways.

The tour of the opera concludes inside the opera itself, with a view of the stage. 

The next spot for my sightseeing became the Zwinger Palace, which is adjacent to the Semperoper. The Zwinger was constructed as a party palace for the Saxon royal family, in a style similar to the Versailles Palace in Paris.

Today the Zwinger palace houses several museums. The most-visited one is the Old Master’s Gallery of paintings from the 15th to the 18th century, as well as some sculptures.

I’m no art connoisseur, so most of the artists’ names were unfamiliar to me. There were some interesting pieces among the collection though.

Jacopo Tintoretto’s “The Archangel Michael fighting against Satan” from 1590.

Bernardo Bellotto’s “The Market Square in Pirna” from 1754.

More interesting for me personally was the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon, a science museum also found at the Zwinger.

This part of the palace holds scientific instruments used for research during the Enlightenment period of the 17th & 18th centuries.

There’s also a large collection of globes from that era. The globe pictured below was created in the 1640s. This is how the Americas were believed to look like at the time. 

When I was just about to conclude my visit to the science museum, I received a text message from SWISS. My flight back to Zurich later that evening was canceled. Instead, I had automatically been rebooked on a flight the following morning. I had Monday off anyway, but it was very unpractical, given that it was the night of the Super Bowl. I had made plans to watch the game with a group of friends and colleagues at a bar in Zurich that night.

When I started looking for alternatives, I quickly realized that every flight from Dresden that evening had been canceled. Already at 4 PM, the airport had closed for the rest of the evening due to a couple of centimeters of snow. However, Leipzig Airport was still operating, and they had a flight to Zurich later that evening. There were a couple of trains that would take me to Leipzig in time.

I left the science museum and walked at a brisk pace back to my hotel. On the way, I called SWISS to ask for a rebooking from Leipzig, which was arranged accordingly. I picked up my bag and took a tram to a train station in the Neustadt area of Dresden.

From there, I boarded an InterCity train which stopped at Leipzig Airport after a trip of about an hour.

I arrived at the airport just under an hour-and-a-half before the scheduled departure time. The flight was about 30 minutes late too. It allowed me plenty of time to relax. One thing that I found cool about Leipzig was that the departures board before security was still in an old-fashion flap display style.

After security I went straight to the Lufthansa Business Lounge at the airport, getting something to eat for dinner there. Eventually, it was time for the SWISS flight to depart from Leipzig, a nice conclusion given the hassle of re-booking.

We arrived in Zurich with a delay of just about 15 minutes. All the hassle was worth it though. I still got to see the Super Bowl with friends in Zurich, as I had planned all along.