We  wake up to an amazingly cloudy and rainy sky.  Dang….we planned on taking a scenic drive from Salzburg to Vienna. All hope is not lost, we all jump out the door and sing “rain, rain go a way come again some other day” and we look up and it just gets worse.  Guess the song didn’t work.   We change are plans and go straight to Prague.

There is an accident on the autobahn that  creates a major delay.   Finally we arrive in Prague, on our way to the astronomical clock.  The old buildings are amazing. Prague was not badly damaged during WWII so a lot of the history still stands.

Lance in Prague

We find parking a few blocks away from the clock.   The clock is amazing.   It keeps several versions of time it is definitely the coolest clocks I’ve ever seen.  But there are so many hands that it is hard to understand.   After gazing at time going by we head back to the car and decide to drive to Dresden . So we say “poodle” to Czech Republic and say “halloo” to Germany  once again.

After some driving we finally reach Dresden. On February 13, 1945 Dresden was fire bombed by Allied Forces in WWII.  Approximately 150,000 people died and most of the city burned to the ground.  After the war the red army came to Dresden and started building their “beehive box” buildings.   After the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed the Germans from Berlin wasted no time returning to Dresden and rebuilt the city.  Amazingly they have done an extraordinary job.  They rebuilt the city brick by brick, attempting every possible project, even beer halls.   However, a lot of the Soviet era buildings still stand so it’s hard to tell if you are on the “new side” or the “old side” of Dresden because the architectural mix.

Well, we end the day with a German feast of bratwurst and other yummy stuff at Brauhaus.,