Meißen

On our last day in Sachsen, S and I spent the morning hiking a loop from Rathen to the Wolfsschlucht. On the train back to Dresden, it occurred to me that I could continue all the way to Meißen. A Dresden friend had raved about what a life-saver Meißen had been during the pandemic--a beautiful town where he and his toddler had many outdoor adventures. S and I had visited Meißen with E in 2012, and all I could remember about it was that I wasn't a fan of factory-made slip-cast porcelain. After pausing at the Dresden Hbf for a quick lunch with S, I decided to give Meißen another try.

This time I skipped the porcelain factory, and aimed for the Altstadt.

Yeah, no.

As is my truffle-hunting tendency, I peeked inside the Frauenkirche, much modernized since its 1205 CE founding. My favorite item was this painting of Adam and Eve, showing that Jesus had to die because Adam and Eve listened to a snake.

I then headed uphill, past the ever-present stork...

That's the Frauenkirche down below...

...past a Medieval gate...

...up above the rooftops...

...to Albrechtburg Castle...

...and the Dom.

The entrance to the Dom museum was around back...

...and when I went in to purchase a ticket, the cashier said, "would you like to include the 3pm Dom Tour with that for 11 Euros total?" And I said sure.

Then I went into the cathedral to wait for the tour guide, who had been hanging out next to the cashier. She came in and said we'd wait another 5 minutes for the other ticket-holders--who turned out to number ZERO--and then we headed up into the first of the two towers for my private tour. Incredible. 

As is typical in Germany when you make an effort to speak German despite messing up the grammar, the tour guide complimented my excellent language skills, and I managed to convey that I had a fear of heights. The tour was thus perfectly tailored to an acrophobe who understood most of what the guide was saying and was able to compliment the impressive architecture and views all the way up to the penultimate level ("we can skip it--the views are just as good here, and it isn't as exposed").  

We had views both inside...

...and out.

During WWII, the bells were removed--ostensibly for melting down into weapons, but safely stored instead due to their historical significance. 

We went as high as the level above the bells, then headed all the way back down.

Even without the tour, the Dom was quite the sight...

I think I took this photo for the date 1291...

Yeah, no...

People surely saw rainbows before trying to paint them, but it took another few hundred years to figure out how to paint them.

(Even Caspar David Friedrich didn't get them right. A friend suggests the problem wasn't understanding rainbows, but having pigments with which to conceptually distinguish more than three colors. But even the lighting is off in Friedrich's painting, and he was a master of gilded skies...)

Gebirgslandschaft mit Regenbogen, ca. 1809-10 

Back to the Meißen Dom...

Eek

A view through the museum window's antique glass

13th-c. dog head

After visiting the Dom, I walked through the courtyard,...

...and down the hill behind the castle to the train station--an excellent way to spend an afternoon!