Glenn's Journal for 9-22-02 - Dresden
Today we are off to Sachsische Schweiz (Saxon Switzerland), a national park approximately 50 kilometers out of town. We met up with Ryan, Casey, Fanny (from Venezuela), and Kelly (from Jacksonville, Florida) at the hostel as we were all heading to Saxon Switzerland today. The park provides landscape of tropical forests along with worn cliffs and plateaus that house castles and tiny towns along the Elbe river.
We went to the Dresden Neustadt train station where we caught the train to Pirna before transferring to a bus that dropped us off at Konigstein. At Konigstein we headed up the hill for almost 45 minutes before reaching the castle. We toured around the castle for a few hours before stopping for lunch. We had lunch at the castle before heading back down the hill, by hiking. Of course downhill is always easier than uphill. We were a little impatient to wait for the tram that ran up and down the hill.
From here we waited at the bus stop. While we waited we had to decide if we would go back to Rathen to see another beautiful sight or just head straight back to Pirna and then to Dresden. The weather had not been pleasant at this point with it being cool, overcast, and some sprinkles of rain. After a comment about getting warm with a "hot toddy" or other warm drink, and a hot shower the majority quickly decided to head back to Dresden. An hour and a half later we arrived back at the Dresden Neustadt train station. I felt a little better when we arrived to find that it looked like it had rained all day in Dresden today. We made our way back to the hostel, in the rain, and dropped our day pack off before heading out to dinner.
Dinner was picked up at a restaurant from around the corner. We had it "to go" and returned to the hostel. After dinner Erin sat on a couch in the hallway right outside of our room and typed journals while I sat and read the paper. After a while a few other travelers joined us including Sarah (from Sydney but living in London) and a few guys from Orange County who were traveling together. We chatted until almost 11:00 pm before calling it a night. We read for a while before truly calling it a night. |
