14-22 deg C, mostly cloudy with brief periods of sunshine followed by wind and rain, sometimes very heavy
Walk G: 8km; total: 279km
Walk W: 7km; total: 257km
Today was a real rest day, mainly caused by a bout of ordinary weather! After breakfast we ventured out to view the Frauenkirche (which is within a 100m or of our hotel) in better light than yesterday as the sun was now shining quite brightly. However, soon after arriving in the Square, the clouds came over and that was it for a few hours. We were able to go inside the Church and it is beautiful, not too overdone, but enough of a wow factor that you just want to pull up a pew and let it sink in for a while.
The visitor info centre was next just to get a city map so we could do some planning. Not sure what our Tourist Taxes (2% of the hotel fee per day) go towards but the city map cost $2! Anyway, we needed one so we paid and no sooner had we left the building than it started to rain. Fortunately we already had our rain jackets on, because it was a little cool, so we pulled up the hood and headed for home. Speaking of paying for stuff, we ended up paying the equivalent of $1.40 to visit the toilet today; at a major shopping centre! While it may be normal for the locals, we just can’t get our head around them doing that in a shopping centre. Why wouldn’t you just include the upkeep of the toilets in the rental price of the shops?
While waiting for the rain to go away, we did some more route planning and hotel research. Because the Vienna to Linz, and Prague to Dresden legs each involved three longish days riding, we agreed to shorten the distances if possible and take more days to get to the next major destination. We’re going to give it a try out for Dresden to Potsdam. It is about 275km so we have split it into five days of riding, stopping where there is accommodation available. We will let you know if this strategy is better than three to four days long riding.
We ventured out three more times during the day, all cut short by rain bombs. Never mind, we have tomorrow to see stuff, and if the bad weather persists, we will have to find somewhere to visit indoors. At least there aren’t too many tourists in Dresden as some other places we’ve visited on this trip so far. Let’s hope that it stays like that. When we arrived yesterday we noticed that the fridge in our room wasn’t working, also the aircon wasn’t functioning properly either. So we told them about it and they promised to get them fixed or replaced. By this afternoon nothing had eventuated so when challenged they gave us a new room (#535) no questions asked.
Frauenkirche Dresden in slightly better light than yesterday
Inside Frauenkirche
Dresden Streetscape
Academy of Fine Arts Dresden
More streetscape, with impending doom, in the background!
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