A Day in Dresden

We proceeded on from Bayreuth, further north and east, to Dresden, in Saxony, and the former East Germany. Dresden--old Dresden--was very largely destroyed by the fire bombings of February, 1945. Its reconstruction did not really commence until the reunification, after 1990. But the "Florence on the Elbe" is now just a brick or two shy of a load.

Of course, to appreciate Dresden, you have to look past a whole lot of East 
German aesthetics

Entering the colossal Zwinger, a huge courtyard surrounded by baroque buildings 
and many, many museums

The Zwinger's "crown"

The Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister--the museum of old masters, which we toured, 
at great length...more stuff than in Munich, but not as striking...I came out 
gasping for a Dali...the main treasure is Raphael's Sistine Madonna, and it largely 
because of the famous cherubs...

Note cherubs

The porcelain museum; Meissner porcelain is just down 
the river

King August the Strong

Outside the beautiful Semperoper--the opera house designed by Gottfried Semper

Above the Semperoper entry

The Hofkirche

Altar painting of Hofkirche

A block-long parade of Saxon kings, electors, and other notables, all tile-work

New buildings, old-style, in the grand square

The Elbe itself, after days of rain, was in flood...none of these river cruise vessels 
could get under the city bridges

Camping in Bayreuth

The Bayreuth Festival is, I hasten to note, very RV-friendly

(note we are at the intersection of Tristan Strasse and

Siegfried Wagner Allee (Wagner's son and director of the

Festival for many years, after Cosima's death))

However, we stayed just outside of town at the--I swear I

am not making this up--Lohengrin Therme, one of the

many mineral hot springs for which the area is notable.

It has a stellplatz, a place for RVs to park, free of charge.

Friday night, after my day in Bayreuth, Vicki and I took

the waters, 4 hours of alternating soaking and reading, and

a break for Apfelsatz. Surprisingly, the water was not very

hot, but it was a pleasant diversion. And we love the

stellplatzes.

Richard Wagner in Bayreuth

I spent the day--all day in rain, sometimes torrential--taking in Bayreuth, Wahnfried, the Festspielhaus, all the ambience I could soak up without getting further soaked.

Wahnfried, Wagner's home in Bayreuth, now the Richard

Wagner Museum; fittingly, one is greeted by a bust of

King Ludgwig II, who footed the bill; the museum is

incredbily extensive, not just of Wagner, but of the Festival

and its history, productions, directors, conductors (there

was an exhibit on Toscanini), and singers

The Museum has a no-pix policy, but I did clandestinely

grab this one looking down upon the great hall

Grave of Richard and Cosima

View of Wahnfried from the park

The drive up the hill to the Festspielhaus is one of the most

beautifully-landscaped I have seen

The park presided over by a larger-than-life

bust of Cosima (she too was larger than life)

The Festspielhaus

The balcony from which three trumpeters

traditionally announce the beginning of the

next act

Me, actually inside the Festspielhaus; the day's

performance, Lohengrin, was still an hour or two

away; I wandered around, trying my best to appear

in need of a ticket; but none appeared; alas, I had

left my tux back in Missoula anyway; I repaired to

the festival restaurant for a coffee and for

self-examination and self-recrimination: if only I

had practiced the piano more! But it was still cool to

be in a special place at a special time.

Bayreuth

Next, we drove, in rain, to Bayreuth, in northeastern-most Bavaria, a fairly provincial place, but now the world's capital of opera, German opera, anyway, where the annual (since 1876) Bayreuth Festival was underway. Tickets to the Festival are unobtainable. Although it goes on for a month, and the festival theatre seats 1,800, they are the toughest ticket around. Germans love to tell stories of their being handed down in wills.

Ground-zero Bayreuth

Wilhelmina's Opera Theatre--she was Frederick the Great's

sister, married off to Bavaria, to which, in Bayreuth at least,

she brought culture; very baroque, very royal, completely

contrary to Wagner's aesthetics (and politics), so he had L

ooney Ludwig build him a completely new festival theater

(next post)

Famous fountain near ground-zero

The whole town, even scaffolding, is decked out in Wagner

paraphrenalia (here also Wilhelmina, Jean-Paul, Wagner,

and Lizst)

Siemens sponsored productions of The Valkyrie and a

childrens' version of Tannhauser

All the local stores sport Wagner stuff

The Holy Family in the Mont Blanc store

window

Even the imbiss

Or are named for Wagner, his operas, or

their characters

Well, not all the stores

Wagner display in one of the bookstores

Munich's Alte Pinakotek

Munich offers five world-class museums to choose from. We chose the Alte Pinakotek--the old paintings--observing our preference for things that have stood the test of time as well as our interest in the older North German and Netherlands works. The museum is overwhelmingly wonderful.

A view of the Alte Pinakotek

Our favorite, at length, was Breughel's (the Elder) The Land

of Cockaigne, a political satire depicting the sloth and

corruption of the classes...knights, clergy, scholars, peasants

too

Our favorite genre is the damnation...here a detail of one

of Breughel's, torment by fart...

The usual St. Sebastians

Durer's incredible self-portrait

The obligatory Rembrandt self-portrait

(did he paint anything else?)

And this, widely thought to be Velazquez's

self-portrait--something the Prado would

like to have back, one assumes

The largest and most varied collection of

Peter Paul Rubens I have seen; this his

damnation

This, Rubens' self-portrait with his first wife;

one of the few he did of non-obese people

with clothes on...

Rubens' Last Judgment

I have never seen a museum with more live

painters at work

Rubens' powerful death of Seneca

Titian's portrait of Caesar Carlos IV

(or V, depending on whether you're

counting Spanish or Hapsburg

kings)

An incredible museum I'd visit again in a flash. The displays were excellent, the order logical, the audio-guide, for once, genuinely tasteful and helpful.

Botanischer Garten

Right next to the Nymphenburg Palace is the Munich botanical garden, 14,000 species, something I could not resist.

Extent of the place

On the grounds

Early August, most everything still in bloom

Lily pond

Closer up

Mexicohaus

 I love bromeliads, cycads

Tree ferns, like New Zealand

And a visiting exhibit from Yunnan and Sichuan