Dresden!

Last weekend we took the train down to Dresden for the weekend. We hadn't made it down there yet and it was the Dresden City Festival so we thought we would check it out. Lots of booths and games and such set up as well as music being played all over the city. So we wandered the city checking everything out and listening to the music when we found something we enjoyed. It was a great weekend! A little cloudy/cool which was perfect. It did rain off and on on Sat, but every time it did we were eating so we were inside. It worked out perfect!

Outside of the downtown area where the festival was the street were empty. It was quite odd walking through Neustadt and it being a ghost town almost. I did like that area a lot. There were lots of cute artsy stores and good places to eat.

Eating lunch before the rain came

And now onto downtown/festival photos

Early in the day Sat not many people on the bridge across the river. Sunday this bridge was packed full of people.

There was a stage just to the right of this photo (photo coming up since we listened to some music there)

You can see the people with their ponchos on. It kept getting super sunny beautiful, but then clouds would come in and rain some. Really I loved it as the clouds kept it from being too hot.

Sitting and listening to Nick Howard, a british guy who won The Voice of Germany! Very exciting and I enjoyed his music.

Parade of people dressed in old timey clothing that we happened upon.

Saturday wasn't that busy anywhere, Sunday was jam packed full of people everywhere

Looking across the river to Neustadt

Steam car. Lots of steam engines in Dresden

We stayed on the top floor of a building with a lovely balcony. It was odd as we weren't right downtown, but you could hear the music from downtown on the balcony, even super late at night. That wouldn't happen in Berlin. In Berlin, except for football tournaments, 10pm and you move inside. There is a day of music in Berlin and it is all outside until 10pm. Then it is quiet time so I was expecting the same in Dresden.

Now this here is not one of those night clubs where you can dance or even stand around. This is strictly for sitting at night.

The next few photos are from this arts alley where all the buildings inside had interesting artsy walls.

This one was my favorite with water running through it

Rocks to look like animals

In Neustadt everything was painted fun, even the dumpsters. Some people were coming the opposite direction when I took this and they were laughing at me...well it is a dumpster

Downtown on Sunday - Pokemon!

There were lots of people in costumes like this, though my favorite/oddest one was one I did not get a photo of - a blood bag. To be fair it was outside the place to donate blood, but it was just a strange costume.

Knight fighting in the Medieval time area

The Milka boat with a giant cow...

This strange band with strange instruments. I didn't really think they sounded that good, but it was interesting. Not sure how well you can see the instruments, but they were like normal instruments but with different horns. I just looked it up and they are variations on Martinstrompete (Wikipedia page). If you click here you can click on the photo and go to the youtube video of them playing, or find out more about the band. I had never seen instruments like this before.