9 September ’04, Thursday. The sky has been clear, the sun bright and the temp in the late morning to late afternoon, which has made it great for the last 10 days. Now for the evenings. The stars and the moon are bright as bright can be, and temperature is dropping fast. We were heading into Dresden by 8:30am today and expected to have a full day of exploring. Rick, I think this is a city that you would really enjoy… It has history in it’s name. Two of the churches that we visited, were nothing but a beautiful shell. The bombing in ’45 had completely destroyed them, and now they are being rebuilt. The exteriors, for the most part have been finished. The interiors are in the first phase of being re-established. One commonality between the two churches…the bell towers were both in working order and the bells made themselves heard throughout the day. I love the sound of the bells in Europe ... what is it with the US? Yesterday I mentioned the re-building of the “Old Town”, well that’s definitely not all the construction going on…. The communists held construction to a slow crawl for so long, so now that they are a unified Germany and a member of the European Union, they are making up for lost time. You don’t want to be in a hurry in getting through the streets….road construction is everywhere!!! New commercial structures, re-building of railway stations, new plazas, and,and,and… Now let’s get back to what we did today…a couple palaces, theatres, churches, museums, “brat” stands, and coffee houses… too much time and space but, the Royal Palace, Theaterplatz, Hofkirche Cathedral, the former Catholic Court Chapel, Semper Opera House, The Rampart Pavilion, and the Zwinger. Most of our time was spent with the “Old Masters” in Gemäldegalerie. We took three hours to “study” the “Art of the Masters”. To be within 24inches of a Rembrandt, Raphael, Vermeer…. Truly magnificent works of art. I do have to admit to everyone, after the first two hours or so, it’s “over-load” and I’ve got to move on. So move on we did. We caught the bus back, settled down with a fine glass of red and fired up the barbeque. Tonight we are having Pork tenderloin with all the trimmings….not bad for camping grub. In checking our email today, we found one from Bon and Douglas. We are going to meet them in Ankara, Turkey on the 3rd of Oct. Looking forward to it !!! So, we have got to get ourselves in gear. Tomorrow….heading south