Sachsen, the Germans call it. To us English-speakers, this is Saxony. Its capital is Dresden, a city on the Elbe River which runs to Hamburg and into the North Sea. However, Saxony is far from Hamburg, Hannover and the flat North German Plain. Saxony is made of rolling hills and beautiful valleys with small towns and spas, and it ends at the Polish and Czech borders with the beautiful Erzgebirge mountains. It is considered a remote area in Germany. One could possibly say that geographically, Saxony is the Idaho or New Hampshire of Germany, however it has the historically significant art, culture and society of any of the old German kingdoms (today that old Saxon kingdom is broken up into actually three seperate German states, as well as parts that are now in Poland). And Dresden is the hub around which this all centers.

We (my Mom and I) arrived in Dresden on May 1, May Day, Beltane, whatever you call it. Throughout Europe this day is a huge festival, full of medieval jousts, the drinking of mead (met), and of course the quintessential labor union parades and marches. There's music, food, and lots of drinking. Here we see people dancing heartily to a Turkish band that was really heating up one of the many public squares in Dresden. The flag draped in front of the stage above looks interestingly enough like from the style of the old Socialist/Communist era, so it's possible this was some kind of labor union rally.

If you drive into Dresden from the west, what you see is something very interesting. An entire town which appears to be painted black. This is probably from the enormous amount of soot from the coal burning days of the Communist era. When it came time to partition Germany into Allied occupation zones in 1945, Dresden fell into the Soviet side, which became East Germany. This led to decades of coal use while West Germany progressed with its market economy and became more advanced in using cleaner energy.

However, I sometimes wonder if that's where all the soot comes from. Perhaps some of that soot also comes from the ashes of thousands of people that died there between February 13th and 15th, 1945.

Being a German city, it was unfortunate enough to be on the losing side of WWII and it was firebombed during Karnival (Mardi Gras) on the night of February 13th, 1945. Everyone was in the streets that night when the Allies dropped incindiary bombs onto the city for hours on end. The entire city became a firestorm. These fires didn't end until days later. It is said that many people actually didn't die from the flames, they died from the lack of oxygen caused by huge vortexes of flame that lept 300 feet into the air, burning up all the oxygen from the city. This comes from first hand accounts of survivors that barely made it out alive. Around 25,000 to 35,000 people perished. There are accounts that 300,000 died but research on these claims has proven that they come from German ministries during the War, and obviously Nazi propaganda as there would be no way for the Germans to accurately calculate the dead right afterwards (and don't forget, they were defeated 3 months later). Claims of 150,000 are mentioned as well, however this number comes from David Irving, one of the "Holocaust revisionists" who tries to make claims that deflate the number of dead in the Holocaust, while at the same time he does things like inflating the number of dead at Dresden. I'll let you be the judge as to his motives (they are quite obvious to me).

Nevertheless, this firebombing is an incendiary topic as well, as there are those who say it was a valid target like any other German city, while others, including US and British documents state that bombing cities that had no military value was a waste of time and accomplished little to end the war that was already rolling to a swift German defeat. Recent documents purport that one reason may be that the Western Allies didn't want the Soviets to advance too far too quickly so Dresden had to be bombed to destroy its infrastructure, roads and buildings. If this was the cause, it didn't work because the Soviets did get Dresden and much more.

Our next goal for the day was to visit the castle of Königstein, further up the Elbe River in a more remote region known as the "Sächsiche Schweiz", however it was getting dark so we went a bit further and stayed in a small spa town called Bad Schandau (Bath-Schandau). It was a quaint little village along the river and we explored the town on foot a bit after dinner. This was May 1, and still we easily found a great Gasthaus (guest house, or "bed and breakfast") for $30 a night. April to early May really is the best time to travel Europe!

The next morning we drove back a bit up towards the castle, Festung Königstein. It's really more of a fortress, which is what "Festung" means. It has a rich history, often serving as a refuge for the Saxon royalty during tough times when they had to leave Dresden. Napoleon's forces garrisoned here during his disastrous attempt to conquer the Russians and Europe in the early 1800s. During the World Wars, the Germans used it as a French and Russian POW camp. When Germany capitulated in WWII, the German commander surrendured it to the highest-ranking French imprisoned officer. Talk about role-reversal. It became a hospital during the Soviet era, and then was once again granted to the State of Saxony in 1991 after the German Reunification. If you want to find out more about this castle, visit http://www.festung-koenigstein.de .

This structure sits atop a large hill overlooking the Elbe River and the Lilienberg (the flat-topped hill in the background). To the west and downriver is ultimately Dresden. To the east and upriver is Bad Schandau, the Czech border in the Erzgebirge Mountains, the gateway to our adventure into Bohemia...

Day 4 of Eurotrip 2002 is next! Get ready to see Prague during one of the busiest days of the year.