10 September ’04, Friday. We both felt leaving Dresden was tough to do. That is one European city that we would definitely like to return to. In the year 2006, they are going to have the city rehab completed and I’m sure it will be done right. Well, we left anyway. Louise had prepared our route to head down the Elbe River on route 172. Our first stop was to be the 15th Century Konigstein Fortress with the Christiansburg Castle (which by the way, was never captured or over-run because of it’s design and position on the hill). At the loop of the Elbe, we saw the castle and the fortress high on the hill off in the distance. This combination took up the complete top of the hill and looked as if it were a city. Instead of stopping and taking a picture so far off in the distance, I opted to wait for a closer shot and also we are going to stop there and visit….WRONG… I missed the turn, the parking lot, and the fortress by 12km before we noticed…Nuts !!! Well, our 2nd stop is just another 6km so I promised Louise “believe me, I wont miss this one !!!” I didn’t… once we made the small village and the bottom of the hill, we started the winding, narrow, “S” turns for about 12km straight up. Our destination was the Bastei near Rathen. This is a paradise for hikers and those that are rock climbers. The view over the labyrinthine gorge with its bizarrely shaped rocks is well worth the effort. The Bastei bridge, was built in 1851 and crosses the ravine between the rocks. This gives an amazing feeling as you walk across. We saw more rock climbers in that one area than I have seen in my whole life. They were everywhere….some already at the top, some repelling, some still attempting to reach the top. It was great. After about 2 hours we moved down the same roadway to the bottom and we were on our way to cross the border between Germany and The Czech Republic. Our next stop was to be our sought after campground…apparently, we missed it or it moved. So one we went to a secondary site. This one we found with out a hitch. It was right on the bank of a lake that was formed by a dam. The water was flat and beautiful. As you looked across to the other side, you had a view of 5 cooling towers and the rest of the buildings of a Nuclear Power Plant.