Ordinary tourist things in Dresden

We’re wrapping up our stay in Dresden. We’ve mostly taken a break from World War 2 sites – but we’re headed to Berlin next, so there’s more to come – but I wanted to show you a couple of pictures of Dresden after the February 13 – 15, 1945, bombings. The first picture is of the main area – right by our hotel – months after the bombings, with people riding trams right through the rubble: (neither picture mine)

The second picture is this same area in 1952 – seven years later, they were still clearing the site:

We spent some time at the Residence Palace of Dresden, which is famous for its Historic Green Vault and New Green Vault. What these are, basically, is rooms full of extremely ornate things you would never ever need to own. (Next photos not mine: no photos allowed in some rooms)

Here’s the exterior:

Here’s some down-to-earth interior rooms:

These next selected examples should prove my point about usefulness of the treasures in the vault:

This creepy memento of a birthday celebration, holding 5120 diamonds, 160 rubies, 164 emeralds, one sapphire, 16 pearls and two cameos from 1701:

A drinking horn from 1585:

This tea service from 1697:

And this coral-handled silverware set from 1580, which would make for a fun meal to observe, from a dexterity point of view:

Other parts of the museum held more interesting items, like a display on forged money over the eons. There have been people forging coins for hundreds of years. These are from 1753, real on the left, forgery on the right. I feel, as a human race, we have come a long way in our forging and general thievery skills:

In an ironic twist, this museum full of extremely valuable stuff was robbed in November 2019, with items worth 130 million dollars stolen. (In a note about German revisionist history themes, the single sign acknowledging the theft in the museum said the items were of little value and mostly sentimental). By contrast – all the newspaper articles I looked up described it as one of the greatest heists in history.

Some of the items were recovered last year and 6 men went on trial: https://www.dw.com/en/dresden-green-vault-jewelry-theft-trial-opens/a-60587312. The defendants are 6 members of a Berlin-based mafia.

We also had a chance to take our final car factory tour of the trip: the Volkswagen Transparent Factory, where they make some of the electric models:

Here’s an interior shot as you walk into the factory:

And here was Ron’s favorite car, an ID5, selling for about $70K:

The factory was an interesting contrast to Mercedes and Porsche factories. As an all-electric factory, it seemed mostly mechanized, with fewer staff attending to the stations. The craziest thing, though, was that big building pictured above makes only 38 cars a day!!!! 38!!!!! Porsche and Mercedes make hundreds and hundreds of cars a day at the factories we toured.

I’ll leave you with my favorite items from the Residence Palace. No fancy jewels for me. I loved these shoes from 1733 and in fabulous shape:

And a soup tureen from 1713: