A photo a day 2026, plus or minus

I joined Stefan in Dresden on May 29 and spent most of my copious free time walking up a storm. With just two days left before we head out on this summer's long-distance hike, it's time to put some of those memories into pixels.

Friday May 29, Dresden moonrise:

Saturday May 30, hike from Rathen to Wehlen with a subset of the research-exchange student cohort:

View of Elbe from Bastei

The trail was 16 times longer than 1 infinity

Sunday May 31, a hike up the hill S of Dresden to Bannewitz...

...and a stellar concert at the Dresdner Philharmonie featuring Stefan's favorite clarinetist:

Monday June 1, it's a new month and I'm now on the Deutschland Ticket, next to free, free, free as a bird! One of the grad students told me about a nearby castle built atop basalt columns, so I hiked from Stadt Wehlen to Stolpen. This also gave me a chance to hike the Teufels Grund in the Saechsicsche Schweiz National Park, which our weary group of hikers had felt too weary to explore on Saturday.

I squeezed through this nook on my hands and knees.

Teufelskammer

Burg Stolpen, no time to stop before catching a bus

Tuesday-Thursday, June 2-4, hiked from Hřensko to Herrnhut, partly along the  Hřebenovka Českým Švýcarskem (the Czech complement to the Malerweg). This will get its own post.

Friday June 5, with a 100-mile week within my grasp, I looped to the Blaue Wunder and back:

Bubble action in Dresden Altstadt

Snazzy estates line the right bank of the Elbe

Saturday June 6, we hiked the Caspar-David-Friedrich-Weg with S's colleague Joe, revisiting the Wolfsberg and Kaiserkrone and adding in Zirkelstein. 

Look, up ahead--the rock in C.D.Friedrich's "Two Men Contemplating the Moon"

Two Men Contemplating the Trees

We made up for failing to notice these rocks last year 

Sunday June 7, a walk in the morning to the Bienertpark to knock out a few more miles, then a superlative performance of Die Zauberfloete at the Semperoper with the student cohort. (This was a much more dynamic performance than the bland rendition we saw with Elias in 2012). First 100+ mile week of 2026!

Monday June 8, I spent almost the entire day inside fretting over a 2-sentence bio that I had to submit for a Big Deal Thing coming up this fall. Reddit indicates others have similar bio anxiety.

Tuesday June 9, I walked to Moritzburg, yet another castle. The route was pretty much a straight shot north from Dresden, and it says something that passing a yard infested with garden gnomes was one of the day's highlights.

Wednesday June 10: It had occurred to me on the way back from Herrnhut that I had missed an opportunity to walk to Poland, so I took a train to Görlitz, Germany's easternmost town. This will get its own blog post later. 

Thursday June 11, I spent most of the afternoon revisiting the Albertinum, then went to hear a delicate violoncello + cembalo concert with S at the Palais im Rosengarten. 

Not Friedrich's best rock...

Edouard Leonhardi, Waldeinsamkeit, captures the Elbsandsteingebirge far better than my cellphone camera can 

Waldhexe ca. 1898 by Julie Wolfthorn, "a committed campaigner for equal rights"

Palais

Weathered chic interior

Friday-Sunday June 10-12, Berlin. Cohort was at Max Planck Institut in Potsdam on Friday, so I went for a long walk, then attended the first half of Carmen at the Deutsche Oper.

Friedrichswerdersche Kirche is now a sculpture gallery. Apologies to Eve for cutting off her head, but I wanted to capture vexed toddler Abel

The Queen of the Night's starry set was designed by K.F. Schinkel, who also designed the church housing the exhibit

Missed 'em last year, found 'em this year

Erected 2016, when folks acknowledged men don't exist in a vacuum 

The pre-overture backdrop: a flayed bull's head. I left at intermission, after
Don Jose butchered Zuniga's kidneys for Carmen's organ-smuggling ring (wait, what?).

On Sunday, we visited H, S', and V...

...and walked to the Olympic Stadium and beyond

Monday June 13, I spent our last full day in Dresden outside of Dresden. In the morning, S joined me for a loop hike from Rathen to the Wolfsschlucht. In the afternoon, I took a train to Meißen, which we had visited in 2012 but I had few memories of other than that I have no affinity for factory-made porcelain. Meißen will get its own post, because ooh ah, apparently I saved the best for last.

In höchster Not, Kurort Rathen edition

Signs that you're in Germany

Fossilized ammonites in the train station stairwell:

A kitchen-supply store that proudly frames "Kuechen" with "XXL Ass"*:

A fancy 3-course beige dinner:

I flew to Berlin on May 29, then caught a train to join S in Dresden. We took a walk that evening so I could get some sunlight and nip jetlag in the bud. Enlarge the photo to see the center bubble mid-pop!

 

*S insists this is a serious name. Ass means "ace," as in "the best." There's also a popular kid's card game here called Top Ass, which also makes me snicker.

Famous people's houses

Yesterday morning, Stefan and I walked over to Friedrich-Wieck-Strasse and saw the Friedrich Wieck house.

Then we walked up to Schiller Strasse and looked at the Schillerhäuschen wherein Schiller wrote Don Karlos.

How foresighted of Schiller and Wieck to facilitate tourist pilgrimages by being famous enough to have had their streets renamed after them!

Dresden

Another roadtrip: we're in Dresden! Schumannophiles will recall that it was during the May 1849 Dresden Uprising that pianist Clara Schumann single-handedly plowed her way through the fighting to whisk her children out of town to safety while her brilliant weenie of a husband stayed home. We are renting a Ferienwohnung in the Wachwitz neighborhood, outside of the main city, right on the Elbe. Tomorrow morning, I will make a pilgrimage half a kilometer up the road to bow before the house of Clara's father, Friedrich Wieck, who moved to Dresden-Loschwitz in 1844.

Unfortunately, I forgot to pack my USB connector, so I can't download any photos until next week; but first impressions indicate this is a beautiful place.