It is unrecognisable from the embers of February 13, 1945 when Allied bombers set the jewel of Saxony on fire but look at it now… Dresden’s phoenix from the flames 80 years on.
As talk turns to reconstruction in Ukraine, and also Gaza, Dresden stands as an object lesson.
to the world of a people’s resilience and ambition to restore itself to its former glories.
On the pulpit: The pastor
Dignitaries gathered in the city’s most sacred spot, its Holy of Holies, the Frauenkirche to mark the date.
Including the British royal family’s Duke of York, who would have been nine when the bombs dropped and likely little aware even of where Dresden was.
Although we’re told that he has spent the last 30 years fostering links between the one-time enemies.
Building bridges
Bridging the gap: On the Elbe
Perhaps the most symbolic example of building bridges (and yes, the Elbe crossings had to be reconstructed too) involved silversmith Alan Smith.
The son of one of the bomber pilots who had taken part on the raid over Dresden on the night of the 14th of February 1945.
Who we were told when we met too in the reconstructed Frauenkirche over a German travel fair.
To hear of how the orb on the top of the building was his tribute to the Dresdeners of 1945.
At Great Uncle Willie’s grave: In Flanders, Belgium
We’ve seen first hand how the fiercest foes have stretched out a hand to end enmity.
As British soldier Harry Patch did past his 100th birthday in Ieper, Flanders.
And we as nations have in a NATO which is showing signs of stress.
But which it must be remembered has ensured peace in Western Europe for 80 years.
Hand in hand
Freunde: With Ingrid
Giving praise for our peace and security that day back eight years now.
While listening to the pastor in the Frauenkirche we had no foresight of what was to come in Ukraine.
The Chookie Kent will do the Ich Bin Ein Dresdener and link arms with the human chain in Germany.
Wall: What is it good for?
Just as hundreds do annually, standing hand in hand to form a protective ring in remembrance of those who died.
Back then on my visit to Dresden we celebrated the living.
Me and Ingrid, our tour guide whose mum had been woken that ill-fated evening when the Red Storm befell Dresden.
And we, a Brit and German embraced 72 years later, a testimony that not all enmities are everlasting.
Travel facts
Dome from home: In front of the Frauenkirche
How to get there: KLM Dublin to Dresden via Amsterdam €167 Return €157.
Where to stay:The Amedia Plaza hotel in the old city: B&B three nights €243-315 for business single in July.
With its palaces, kirches, friezes and Semperoper retouched in every finest Renaissance detail from 1789 when Mozart visited.
Song in my heart: Amadeus
Such was Mozart’s renown that culture and opera lovers of the day would travel far and wide from his Austrian home
To Germany and across the continent to listen to the superstar.
Culture vultures
Much as they do today but whereas opera buffs then would rely on rickety stagecoaches.
Today’s culture vultures can just leave it all to the go-to people in opera holidays to the great music cities of Europe, The Institute for Culture Travel.
IFC is floating a four-night tour to buy for Christmas, in Hof & Dresden from Friday, June 14 to Tuesday, June 18.
Hof and running
Let me entertain you: With a Cassidy score
15th June: Opera in Hof – Patrick Cassidy’s ‘Dante – From Inferno to Paradise’
You’ll start in Hof in this picturesque Bavarian town where you’ll spend two nights.
The highlight will be the world premiere of Patrick Cassidy‘s opera, ‘Dante – From Inferno to Paradise’ and a meet and greet.
Patrick, Ireland’s most renowned living classical composer, is known for his film scores.
And the aria ‘Vide Cor Meum’ from the film Hannibal.
Pure magic
Piano man: ‘Mozart’
Before you hit the road for Dresden and the master himself and that Magic Flute ‘Die Zauberflöte’ at the repurposed Semper.
Your price will include:
Return flight Dublin-Berlin
Coach transfers as follows:
14 June: Berlin airport – Central Hotel in Hof with lunch stop
16 June: Central Hotel in Hof to Steigenberger Hotel de Saxe in Dresden
18 June: Steigenberger Hotel de Saxe in Dresden To Berlin Airport
Two-nights in the Central Hotel in Hof with breakfast
Two-nights in the Steigenberger Hotel in Dresden with breakfast.
Meals as follows:
14 June: Lunch in Leipzig on route to Hof
14 June: Drinks reception and welcome dinner in the Central Hotel in Dresden with Patrick Cassidy in attendance
15 June: Pre-opera dinner
16 June: pre-opera dinner
Category 1 ticket to Dante – From Inferno to Paradise by Patrick Cassidy in Theatre Hof
Category 1 ticket to Mozart’s enchanting opera Die Zauberflöte at the world-famous Semper Opera House.
Walking tour in Leipzig (duration approx. 1-hour)
Walking tour in Dresden (duration approx. 2-hours)
Of course, only you can answer that, but those of us for whom travel is what we get up out of bed for have become used to being Public Enemy No.1.
Our travel providers were ignored while everyone else got a hand-out over the last two Covid years.
While the only ignominy travel writers and bloggers were spared was being put in the stocks and having rotten tomatoes thrown at us.
We’re welcome
United: With Ukraine
The truth is that never have countries and holiday destinations needed our patronage more than now.
Amid the sheer horror of the war in Ukraine we witnessed a surreal moment when a Turkish holidaymaker asked a TV journalist how he was going to get home now.
While there is a wave of foreign students who have also been caught up in Ukraine wanting to return home now.
All sought out Ukraine in more peaceful times, piqued as we all are wherever we go to seek out a new culture, people and country.
Our own governments help (no, really they do) when they issue guidance on countries that are safe to visit.
But sometimes we just need to trust our own instincts.
A beat surrender
Warm welcome: Tunisia
So that when an invite to Tunisia, a couple of years after the beach terrorist atrocity, came in I opted with a heavy heart not to go.
Because it was not long after the inquest of the deaths of Irish people in the North African country.
The worry in travel now over Eastern Europe is how the Ukraine war will alter the holidaymaker’s perspective of neighbouring countries.
And it is only natural that people when faced with a choice of whether to book a cultural holiday to Eastern Europe or a familiar sunspot holiday would choose the latter.
But I always think that such sun, sea and sand holidays will always be there but history and culture is fluid and we should put the energy into seeing these jewels while we can.
Before hostilities break down and borders close.
Behind the Iron Curtain
The Dresden Mural: And a lesson from history
There was a time, of course, before the collapse of Communism when Westerners couldn’t visit behind the Iron Curtain, or Eastern Europeans could see what we had to offer.
And again The Scary One captured the zeitgeist when she sighed that it would be a long time now before she could visit Russia, a country which has long intrigued her.
I am fortunate as all natives of all countries will feel abut their homelands to be born where I was, and when I was.
And that means I have absorbed more than I could ever read or see on television, by visiting Dresden in the old DDR, where Vladimir Putin himself honed his skills in espionage.
And that it acted as a constant reminder of what might befall them unless they remain vigilant.
Open embassies
By George: With Ambassador George in the Georgian Embassy
Equally Russia’s neighbours have always greeted us with open arms and vodka and wine.
And while I have yet to get out to Poland and Georgia I have technically visited by being wined and dined at their embassies in Dublin.
I’m glad to say my friends from these countries and others are still retaining some sense of normality by keeping me updated with their travel plans for us.
And that includes the Baltic state of Estonia who keep me up to date with their newsletter.
February’s flagged up the border city Narva, ‘the crossroads of the East and West’.
Or find yourself in Rakvere with its castle ruins.
And Tartu, the Culture Capital of Europe 2024 which we hope will be able to fulfil its brief.
I must have been one of the very few kids in Glasgow to be lullabied to sleep with old Republican songs… and because of that and my own journey I’m an avowed internationalist republican which is why today I say Vive La Republic of Barbados.
Now you’ve heard me wax lyrical already many times about the magical island of Barbados and my Kiss With Rihanna and Rumba there.
And Bim, as it is affectionately known (hence me being known on the island as Bim Jim) is the talk of the Scottish and British Travel scene with the Bridgetown route rolling out from Edinburgh next month.
Now to celebrate Barbados becoming the latest country to throw off the shackles of monarchy and go out on their own, here’s to all those nations who have taken their destiny in their own hands.
And decided to be governed by one of their own.
Now a true republic, just like a true democracy or a true anything these days in double speak, is a moveable object.
But you’ve got to start somewhere which is why we’re going with 160 (now Barbados have signed up).
All republics lead from Rome
And if you know you’re Classic History, and my Latin is better than my Ancient Greek then you’ll know that republic derives from the two Latin words res and publica (public thing).
So that’s one of the famous things that ‘the Romans did for us’ although, of course, if you’re British then it’s an experiment from which we’ve run far away.
Apart, of course, from a brief period from 1649-1660 when these islands of Britain and Ireland entered into a Commonwealth which was really a theocracy.
But while Westminster claims to be the mother of all parliaments (doubtful, and Europe’s oldest in Iceland might have something to say about that).
It’s Rome which is the mothership of all republics, and we have the good fortune that the Forum, the hub of Roman public life is still there.
No fools those Ancient Romans though with their togas as I found out when I almost fainted in the Eternal City heat in my modern clothes.
An Italian fixture
Venice: And let’s catch a gondola back to Padova
Now where Rome led the rest of Italy followed.
And chief among them was the 1100-year Venetian Republic which still styles itself thus and is hewn into every gondola and the very bricks of the Campanile.
Florence, Siena, Amalfi, Pisa and Genoa all saw what the Doges were doing and how fetching their hats were and followed suit.
But the republicaniest of all the republics and the longest-standing is San Marino.
And so what they lack in football skills (0-10 v England) they more than make up for in their political skills.
La Republique, mais oui
Je suis L’Empereur: Napoleon
Ah, yes, the French. like so much, would have us believe that they are the shining light of Republics.
So much so that they have had five of them ever since Corsican Napoleon got le ball rolling.
Notre ami soon decided though that L’empereur sounded so much better…
And he did that with one arm behind his back (or affectedly tucked in his jacket then).
It must be a poncey royal thing because the UK’s Prince Charles who very graciously decided to attend the signing-over papers to the Bajans (and bag himself some sun at the time) does pretty much the same thing.
And on a tangent we’ll not say anything about the carbon footprint, Prince Save The World.
None of us are perfect, of course, it’s just the rest of us don’t bleat on about it and preach to the rest of us who do hop on planes.
Middle Ages and Middle Europe
Can I be trusted on a bike? In Amsterdam
The breeding ground for republics in the Middle Ages was what we now know as Germany.
And a quick count chronicles 62 in the northern European powerhouse.
All of which would be a good exercise and excuse to traverse modern-day Germany with a Michael Portillo type notebook.
I’d have to start in my favourite German city Hamburg first of course.
There are some who have gone the opposite way to the Bajans and jumped from republic to monarchy like the Dutch.
Others who have had a brief dalliance with republicanism, Catalonia, and still have hopes of a return to those halcyon days.
Battle hymn of the Republic
Southern men: At the statue of Stonewall Jackson at Manassas
Yes, their eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
And while the North eulogised its Republic, the South too held its close to its bosom, albeit for just five years.
That said the Confederate States of America still exist in the hearts and minds of many in the Deep South.
And you don’t need me to tell you that that was the first battle of the US Civil War.
Post-colonial
Cool for cats… in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
There were, of course, a rash of republics in the post-colonial world which is where Barbados join us now.
While in Africa and Asia the cry went up for the ‘public thing’ which alas all too quickly became the ‘dictator thing.’
And because of these precedents it ratchets up our hope that the South African Rainbow Nation experiment proves successful despite its challenges.
And the USSR and its satellites
The voice of Dresden: With Ingrid in Dresden
Dogmatic ideologists, of course, think nothing of hijacking the word republic for something that looks nothing like it.
And hovering up previously self-governing nations, which is where Russia came in and formed the bloated Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic.
Unless I find me a time machine a trip back to those days will inevitably elude me, although that’s where museums and heritage come in.
And you can still immerse yourself into the spirit of those days on any trip out there.
Which is exactly what you get when you visit the old DDR.
Now we all know of the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie but more of us should visit the mural to communism which stands as a reminder of Russian misrule and occupation in Dresden.
Irie, Barbados
It’s a republic, now: With Ruby in Barbados
And so good luck to the incumbent President of Barbados. Sandra Mason, incidentally also the last governor-general.
Vive La Republic of Barbados.
I’ll raise a glass of rum punch to you on the official date of handover tomorrow.
Which is a shared holiday, Barbados’s National Day, and Scotland’s too.
In Scotland, Barbados: Honest
And until my own native land becomes a republic (I’m not holding my breath) I’ll. mark yours, and America’s and France’s.
And the whole lot of you, 160 or so, who have taken the revolutionary step of deciding that you wanted to be ruled by someone of the people.
I put my foot in it with a colleague, so just to say there will be no more gags about Amber lists and you’re a gem..
The amber threat has had holidaymakers panicking and fretting about getting back from foreign countries and then paying through the nose for self-isolation.
And the latest countries in the firing line are two of our favourites, France and Italy.
But the fossilised tree resin is something to be treasured as a precious jewel.
And also a healing property for hippies, whom I lean to….ooooohhhhhhm!
Museum pieces
Craftwork: amber
You’ll find amber really wherever you’ll find trees, or where trees once were, which is pretty much everywhere.
And among all their magical qualities they also seem to have a magnetic pull on women.
Particularly when you’re on your holiday with la famiglia in the coastal town of Southwold in England’s East Anglia.
And the evidence is somewhere at the bottom of the Scary One’s Jewellery box.
Though not the 2.2 kilo exhibit… it would only drag her neck down.
Pole stars
Shine bright: The colour of the sun
Now every day’s a school day when you’re meeting holiday providers from around the world.
And while feeding our bellies with big bowls of Polish soup and warming our hearts with their vodka, our Polish friends gave us the rundown on Gdansk.
And its impressive history with amber.
What’s more it’s even better than it was before with the new Amber Museum of Gdansk opened to the public only last week.
Amber is brilliant in tone and hue and can act naturally as a receptacle for all the things that can get stuck in trees, like bugs.
While it is a great building block for jewellery yes, but from spoons to chess sets to Fender Stratocaster guitars.
Opening gambit
The voice of Dresden: With Ingrid in Dresden
Museum director Waldemar Ossowski said: “Amber items are delicate and sensitive, and the susceptibility to damage increases with the age of the item, which is why many amber masterpieces have survived in fragments and are missing many figurines.”
I doubt whether there will be many of us in the UK saying Thank You Chancellor for his budget this week, but in Germany they are very much saying Danke Der Chancellor in 2021.
This year Angela Merkel ought to be enjoying a lap of honour after 16 years as Chancellor but in typically understated style she is having none of it.
And she looked suitably embarrassed after a six-minute round of applause from her Christian Democrats party in Hamburg at her last conference as leader.
Hamburgers all round
It was perhaps fitting that the conference should be in Germany’s second city, Hamburg, as it was there in 1954 that she came blinking into the world.
Before being taken off to Templin in Brandenburg, 56 miles north of East Berlin because her father was taking up a pastoral position.
Nobody’s clothes horse, the image of Hleb in From Russia With Love always sticks in my mind.
She wouldn’t want to be compared to a Russian spy, of course, but wouldn’t care a jot about being pulled up over her outfit.
She once rasped at a journalist who had pointed out that she was wearing the same suit twice: ‘I am a government employee, not a model.’
From Angela With Love
Frau Merkel has had little truck with the Russians throughout her decade and a half in charge of the EU’s biggest country.
She remembers only too well the challenges of growing up in the old Communist-led East Germany which is evident to anyone who has visited.
Communist icons: On the walls in Dresden
And can see as I did in Dresden that the mark of the Communist era is still all around them.
Among Frau Merkel’s many successes, of course, have been the consolidation of the fledgling Unified Germany, her leadership during the Recession of the last decade and integrating immigrants.
Ich bin ein Hamburger
While she was happy to pass on the credit for World Cup victory for her beloved Germany national team to Joachim Loew.
Frau Merkel has also been praised for her handling of the Covid-19 crisis and while there have been obstacles since, and remember this is a country at the centre of Europe, they are emerging from the worst of it now.
And they’ll be telling us all about it in the next couple of weeks when we’ll also have the pleasure of reacquainting the friends we met in Dublim from Visit Berlin.
All of which will be music to die Ohren of my own kleine Frau, born in Moenchengladbach, who has a hankering to visit Berlin herself when all this is over.
Baby you’re a firework. Come on let your colours burst – Katy Perry
And boy did those colours burst, signalling that the world wants to have fun in ’21.
The Middle East led the way with the celebrations with some real actual human beings gathering… at social distance.
And rock gods Kiss even performing in Dubai.
Now New Year’s Eve is always going to be a challenge in crowd containment and resources.
But it is a depressing admission that we in the West can’t trust ourselves, and others, to social distance, or meet in pods.
Now, I love an oul’ firework any time of the year, so as Katy says ‘you just gotta ignite the light and let it shine. Just own the night.’
Dresden takes back the sky
Drum roll… in Dresden
Dresden: And Dresdeners have more reason than most to be wary of their sky lit up above them.
The older generation still talk about the red sky, the Allied bombers’ firestorm which razed their beautiful city to the ground at the end of the Second World War.
The resilient Saxons went on to rebuild their city, the Florence of the Elbe, brick by brick to the grandeur it is today.
The light show on the Elbe was the backdrop for the closing night of the German Travel Mart.
And a magical reminder of how light kills darkness.
Take me to the DC ball park
Me, George and my Travel pal Issy
Washington: They love a firework in DC… and that’s just a Donald Trump barbecue.
They put on firework displays for all their VIPs which meant the delegates at the American Travel fair, IPW.
At the Washington Nationals’ ball park.
Home run!
Disney get any better than this
Acting all Goofy
Orlando: And whatever you’re doing around 9pm of a night in Orlando then stop it and look up at the skies.
Me, George and my Travel pal Issy
Acting all Goofy