Dresden tour

Today we went on a tour of Dresden.  I got to see some of the sights, and learn about the city's history.  The tour guide joked about Dresden not being too old, because it was only founded in the 12th century.  Apparently, at one point one of its kings effectively bought the throne of Poland, becoming known as King Augustus the Strong.

Augustus the Strong

There is a magnificent historic district in the center of the city, that has a mixture of architecture from different periods in Dresden's history.  One of the more impressive buildings that we saw was the Zwinger, a palace that Augustus built.  It is now a museum.

The inside of the Zwinger

One of the gates was designed to resemble the crown of Poland:

Another particularly impressive building was the opera house.

One thing I found really interesting about Dresden is how historic it looks, even though the inner city was basically destroyed in 1945.  During World War II, the city was a victim of a devastating firebombing raid that killed 25,000 people and destroyed many structures.  After the war, the city decided to rebuild the historic section the way it was before the bombing.  One building that particularly suffered was the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady).  It was reduced mostly to rubble by the firestorm.  Unfortunately, the strict atheistic policies of the East German government prevented it from being rebuilt until the reunification 45 years later.  Interestingly, the new building was partially constructed from the ruins of the old building, leading to parts of it being different colors.