Dresden Day 3 Old Masters

Today we started the day at the Zwinger art gallery of the Old Masters. We were there for 4 hours and could have been even longer if not for the organ recital that we had planned to go at 3pm. It was just a free 15 minute church pipe organ recital, and the beautiful sounds lulled Ruby and I to a restful nap.
The gallery was well laid out in sequences of periods of painters with an audio guide. Despite the 4 hours there, we had to still rush through the Flemish and Dutch Masters.

Included in our ticket was the visit to the porcelain and mathematics galleries. King Augustus the Strong was a great collector, he loved art, porcelain and clocks, globes, instruments and machines. We came back to the porcelain and mathematics galleries after the organ recital. The porcelain collection was interesting but the clocks and time pieces were truly beautiful.

The day was finished with a meal at Schmidt's, a Michelin star restaurant deep in the suburbs of Dresden, a half hour tram ride away. The food was divine, exquisite and most of all filling. As we had to do laundry, we were already late for our reservation when we got off the tram. We still had a 950m walk to the restaurant. We weren't sure if where Google was taking us so we asked a lady standing at the front of her house saying goodbye to someone. She seemed so helpful and welcomed us straight away into her home. This we thought to mean a short cut out the back of her house. Instead, she enthusiastically beckoned us to come in to see her Chinese antiques, which we gleaned was a collection that her father left her. Then we got the story of how her father went to China and became a professor of music there during GDR, whilst China was under Mao, and Dresden was part of East Germany. She then proceeded to take us down her street with her front door still slightly ajar, to show us the directions to Schmidt's. On the way she wanted us to see her "drawing" gallery and gestured pointing to her watch. We said sorry, but we were late for our reservation already pointing back to our watches. It was really opportune meeting her because she lead us to a short cut. We were almost half an hour late, but it table was still waiting for us. We call people like her our travel angels.

Total distance walked 10.2km.Read more