Going to the ‘mountains’

Now, earlier in this blog I mentioned Sabine and I promised you that you would hear more about her in due course… the moment has arrived. Sabine is Marty’s outstanding workmate. She has done all sorts of marvellous things to smooth our trip, including booking our accommodation so that we could move straight in as soon as we arrived. Sabine has also answered our endless questions (“Eh, where do you buy stamps?” etc) and given us no end of excellent advice. Anyway, one of the things she suggested very early on was a trip to Sächsische Schweiz- a country outing. So, armed with Sabine’s map, we set off.

Dresden Hauptbahnhof (main train station)
One of the things we have found about being auslanders (weirdos in a foreign land) is that everything takes a bit longer than you might expect. Buying a train ticket is a very simple task for locals- it took us about 10 mins just to figure out where to buy the tickets. Anyway, 2 tickets later we set off for Sächsische Schweiz (which, incidentally, does NOT roll off the AngloSaxon tongue with ease).


The Elbe from Bad Schandau bridge
Sächsische Schweiz is named as such because someone thought the area resembled Switzerland. I’m not sure what was the chicken and what was the egg, but a lot of the buildings are also built in Swiss style, which makes the whole area seem a bit like a fairytale book. The Sächsische Schweiz region straddles the Elbe River and the train follows the river all the way. Bad Schandau, where we spent the day, is only about 40km from Dresden and is also about half way to Prague.

Anyway, so we went for a walk in the forest. Except that it is forest, Jim, but not as we know it. Walking in the forest in Germany, I had a sudden revalation about what foreigners go unprepared into the bush in New Zealand. In this forest, which is part of the National Park, there were clear trails everywhere, signs at every junction and cafes / pubs about every 1km (what a great country!!). As you can see, the trees aren’t exatly dense, either.

Bad Schandau did conveniently provide an outstanding Eis stop, however, and I was almost overcome by flavour choices....mmmm... icecream :) We’re off to Prague next weekend (ok, showing off just a bit) so I’m looking forward to seeing a bit of the Czech Republic and taking another train ride.