Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

As a kid, I was always warned by my mother to stay away from the wall of white plates… You know… the round stuff hanging in your grandmother’s house that has blue pictures on it. I have heard something that was called White Gold…. but soon found out that the real name was: Porcelain. I was told that is very expensive…. Well… after another weekend of sightseeing… I believe that it was an understatement!

We were a group of friends who decided to visit Meissen, a city which is well known over the world for their prestigious porcelain ornaments. We left Dresden on 29^th April at around 9am after having a nice muesli breakfast at home. The infrastructure here in Europe still amazes me… we bought our train ticket using a vending machine… a mere €5.6… The train trip lasted about 40min before we arrived in Meissen.

There was only one thing on our minds when we left the train station… Meissen Manufaktur – the Porcelain Factory.  The factory is quite unique on the inside. After you pass the reception, you enter an area displaying amazing jewellery. But don’t worry, the price only varies between 3000€ and 60000€ per necklace… something quite nice for the woman…

After the intimidating rocks dangling on small silver chains, one enters the porcelain section. Now this was an experience… You can pick up any piece of porcelain to examine it; the body whiter than white, flow of lines telling the history of the creator’s mind and the rays of light reflecting from the golden edges while wondering in the back of your mind how it could be made by a man’s own hands… It is quite an experience! I wanted to buy something for myself a souvenir… but be warned… even a nice shooter glass will own approx. €40 of shares of your wallet.

After admiring all the cutlery and kitchen stuff… we proceeded to the presentation area… this is where they tell you the history of the factory and also showing you how the porcelain artefacts are made. From learning things about Feldspar and Kaolin, to showing how mud is transformed into something beautiful, it is a tour which will entertain anyone, from the biker gang to the ballerina club! Below are some pictures of the visit:

First step of pottery: The moulding process.

Second step: Assembly of parts.

After assembling, the object is placed in the oven for curing… an object loses approx. 30% of its initial volume during this process.

Next step: Adding colour using either under-glaze or over-glaze technique.

After baking in oven, the final product…

After we were hypnotised by the elegance of the white gold, we headed to the town centre. We visited the Cathedral of Meissen. The trip from the town centre to the cathedral is an experience. You walk through narrow passages, surrounded by old ruins, passing little vineyards, all the way to the top of the hill… Once you’ve reached the top you are surrounded by the beauty of this city. There is a nice viewpoint over the whole city which could be accessed on the south side of the cathedral. The cathedral was constructed in the 13^th century. It was first a Lutheran church but is used as a Catholic church today. Below are some photos of the cathedral and also the lookout point:

After we visited the cathedral, it was time to fulfil the dream of a hungry student’s stomach… food and something to drink… We stopped to eat something in the town centre, drank really good beer and headed back to Dresden afterwards.

This trip was short, but worth it. To take mud and turn it into something priceless…. Beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder!!

Bis später

Walking With No Limits - Part 2

I would suggest to read first Walking With No Limits - Part 1 before reading Part 2.

We finally arrived in Magdeburg after having some rest on the train for about an hour. During this train trip I saw the weirdest weather changes… During the trip from Wittenburg the weather varied between sunny, to cloudy with rain, followed by snow and hail and finally sunshine as we arrived in Magdeburg. As soon as we left the train, it was time to loosen the muscles and start exploring. But first we had to give those legs some fuel… we stopped at Charley’s for a really nice bratwurst with bread.

We focussed our exploration expedition in the city centre on Saturday. The first historic place we saw was the Altes Rathaus (old city hall). After that we walked east to see the Johanniskirche. We found that the door to the towers was opened so we decided to see what our vertical limit is. Now the stairs in this church to climb was much better than the ones in St. Marien church (Halle). From here we could clearly see how enormous the famous Dom (Cathedral) is - as can be seen from the photo above. The main hall of this church is now used as a conference/ceremony hall and the interior wasn’t attractive for me at all. We could also see the Jahrtaussendturm.

From Johanniskirche we walked to see the famous Grüne Zitadelle von Magdeburg. I really enjoyed walking through this place. It is actually a square building, but the lines make it look unusual. This building was designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser and construction started on October 3^rd, 2005 and was finished two years later. It is referred to be the “greatest and most beautiful building” created by Friedensreich. It is not only used as a residential and office building, but also have a hotel, kindergarten and medical facilities with some small arts and craft shops on the ground floor. It is a perfectly integrated project which is colourful for the eyes and has a relaxed atmosphere for the soul.

From there on we headed south-east to visit the Dom. Now this building is magnificent. I felt like an ant looking up at the Voortrekker monument. The two steeples of the church is approximately 100m tall, giving you the scale of how big this building really is. On Good Friday 1207 the cathedral St. Maurice was destroyed due to a city fire. It was on this foundation where the Dom was constructed. It took 300 years to finish this masterpiece, which was finally finished in 1520.

The weather also played a really good roll with the Gothic theme of the church, making it to feel like I am in a movie. The interior of the Dom was impressive. Most of the statues and slates are crafted using sandstone and marble.  There is a small square on the outside of the church which is like a small grass field. When I stood inside this square, it started to snow/hail, giving me this real Hollywood feeling. I cannot think of any words to describe this landmark of Magdeburg.

After the Dom we walked North-east to cross the Neue Strombrücke (steel bridge) so that we could visit the Stadtpark (City Park). When walking through this park, it doesn’t feel like you are close to any city. Only nature surrounds you with her pleasant songs from the birds and the colour of spring which is approaching. This park brings a perfect balance between the demanding life of a city and the serenity of nature.

And that was our tour for Saturday. After the park we headed south – Approx. 8 km to reach the place where we stayed for the night, CityInn. One thing I have learned from this trip: Make sure you know where you stay and also try to find something close to the city centre, otherwise you are going to walk for a looooong time. 

We started our tour on Sunday morning at about 09:00am after having a really good night’s rest and a breakfast to start the day. We wanted to see the Museum of Cultural History before leaving for Potsdam. There was a section inside about nature which was my favorite part to visit.

It had specimens of different kinds of mammals, insects, sea life and fossils of prehistoric life. They had microscopes at a couple of places where you could look at small organisms. Here I saw for the first time in my life real fossil dinosaur eggs. It reminded me of Jurassic Park -the movie.

The rest of the museum was about the lifestyle in Magdeburg and also history of WWll and how Magdeburg was affected by it. The photo that is shown on the right is a model they made to illustrate what the city looked like in 1945 after the war and it is amazing to see that the biggest building in Magdeburg (the Dom) wasn’t      completely destroyed. The only real damage the cathedral obtained during the war was on January 16, 1945 when a bomb hit the west side of the cathedral, destroying mainly the wall and the organ. All of the windows were destroyed. Below are more photos of Magdeburg:

Rathaus

Magdeburg as seen from Johanniskirche tower

Runes of the St. Maurice cathedral underneath the Dom.

Small courtyard at the back of the Dom.

Art collection inside the Museum of Cultural History.

By this time my feet was extremely tired of all the walking over the last couple of days and was really looking forward to the train ride to Potsdam so that my feet could rest. We arrived in Potsdam at 13:30. Now this is the city that owns my feet. The first thing we decided to do was to visit the Sanssouci (Without concern) Garden. This garden is well known for the Sanssouci Palace which was built for King Frederick the Great in 1747. Unfortunately we visited this place in the winter. 

I believe that when one see these gardens in summer, it would be mind-blowing! It is full of flowers and fruit during spring.  There are a couple of buildings inside the garden which is a must see. For me, this was more like a garden where they grow palaces, because I have never seen so many palaces in one cosed area like this garden. Below are some pictures of each place and a photo or two of some of the views from the surrounding areas:

Picture Gallery

View of garden from SanssouciPalace.

Historic Windmill

Orangery Palace

New Palace at Sanssouci

Charlottenhof Palace

Chinese house

After walking through the garden, we were just in time for our tour through the Sanssouci Palace which started at 17:20. Now this tour is a bit expensive, but I would still recommend it to everybody who will be visiting the Garden. After visiting the Garden, my stomach started to get my attention, for I was hungry, just like a normal student – ALWAYS! We found a nice Turkey restaurant in Friedrich-Ebert-Street and ate a döner kebab before heading back to the place where we stayed for the night, Youth Hostel. The facilities at this hostel was good, but one advice – remember a towel. The breakfast is included in one night stay at the hostel and it is a buffet breakfast… ideal for a hungry student!

Monday morning was our last day of tour before heading back to Dresden and normal routine life, so we had to make the best of it. We decided to visit the other big park – Park Babelsberg. The park is situated on the west side of the city and has a couple of nice sceneries. The park is not as big as the Sanssouci Garden and is on a hill, allowing it to have nice lookout points over the city. Below are some photos of the Park:

 Babelberg Palace with the Glienicker Bridge in the background.

 Babelberg Palace

Steam-powered pump house

 Little Palace

 Court of Justice

Flatow Tower

From the Babelsberg Park we walked north-east to see the New Garden. This garden has two main tourist attraction places, the Marble Palace and the Cecilienhof Palace.

Marble Palace

 Main entrance of Cecilienhof Palace

 The courtyard in the middle of the Palace

The Cecilienhof Palace was built between 1914 and 1917. It is the place where the Potsdam conference was held from July 16 until August 2, 1945 and was attended by Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Attlee and President Harry S. Truman.  Notice the chimneys on the roof; each chimney has a unique shape.

From the New Garden we walked east to see the Belvedere on the Pfingstberg. This was quite a nice place to visit. Construction started in 1793 and was finished in 1863. It has a really nice view over Potsdam and one can even see Berlin from the towers. 

Below are some pictures:

 Inside the Belvedere on the Pfingstberg

 View from back to front of  Belvedere.

View over Potsdam

 View of Berlin

After visiting Belvedere, it was time to head back to the main train station. We past the Russian colony and the houses reminded me of a cuckoo clock. It looks exactly like the house of a cuckoo clock, just bigger. When I saw this, I started to miss my sister’s daughter. My mother has two cuckoo clocks in her house and every time the cuckoo clocks strike on every hour, she runs to see if she can find the bird singing. When we arrived at the main train station, it was time to eat. We both had a really nice döner kebab again and a Radeberger draught to finish it up. We left Potsdam at 15:00 and arrived in Dresden Neustadt at 19:36.

This trip was amazing! I will recommend it to everybody, but would suggest doing it over a whole week and not a long weekend. If you want to cramp everything in a long weekend like we did for cheap, I would recommend the following:

•  Comfortable shoes and pain killers in the backpack.
• Try to find accommodation as close as possible to the city center.
• Not doing it over a weekend with national holidays, because most of the places are closed if one wants to buy food and drinks. You have to walk a bit further on public holidays to find open restaurants and also be willing to pay extra for the food.
• Most important: Travel with someone you can communicate with. This tour would’ve have been so good and I wouldn’t have seen so much if I hadn’t travelled with someone. Thank you Damien!
• Travel light! Trust me, it helps a lot! Just take the necessary. I used my laptop bag for my personal care stuff and took my camera bag with… The next trip will not see my camera bag again. Try to fit everything into one backpack.
• The more willing you are to share a room with other people, the cheaper it will be and the more sightseeing you can do. Try to find a dorm, because all you need is a bed, you do not need a flower on a table with a bed lamp next to you!

Hope you were inspired by the blog posts and enjoyed the reading as much as I did typing it.

Bis später!