Lunch time in Dresden

 Meanwhile back on the old side, it was lunch time.

 Here a painted man stands and teased the tourists that passed by.

 A meal at a Swiss restaurant, of boiled beef with horseradish sauce. It was quite good.

A slice of Sacher torte for dessert, not so good. I had better cake.

Dresden, across the river

 The guide book said, don't forget to cross the bridge to the new town but there wasn't anything of interest in it. I did find this beautiful rose garden in front of an old empty mansion. I stayed a while to smell the roses and to be in their sweet presence!

I guess people in Europe take these scenes for granted but we from dry and hot Southern California find tremendous delight in lush and green spaces, filled with wild roses.

Spring time in Greece

Keri Smith in her blog wrote, 'be your own celebrity.  I said in a poster on my fridge door, 'I am the star in my own show.' I remember spring time in Greece, it was so magical!

Greece

I won't be traveling for a while because I'm having some issues at work. Until its settled, I'm staying put. So I'll be posting pictures from previous trips.

Furstenzug, Dresden

The parade of the victors, a panel made from Meissen tiles showed Saxon's princesses and kings. Dresden was part of Saxony, it was heavily bombed by the allied forces during World War II.

Potsdam

 I arrived in the afternoon, tired and hungry, took this hop on hop off bus. I did mean to hop off but never did. I stayed on the bus and toured Potsdam on this bus.

 Potsdam is very livable, quiet and pretty, hard to imagine that 25 years ago it was part of East Germany. Now there is no trace of its communist past.

 The huge Park Sanssoucci, part of the palace ground. Its very beautiful. I regret not having hopped off the bus. I should have wander around this park.

 The very beautiful Palace Sanssoucci.

I did hop off the bus to use the bathroom.

A cave temple

This is a recreation with whatever is left, a reconstruction of a cave temple and is in the Berlin Dahlem museum. If one were to go to some of these areas in China, one would find the caves devoid of their original contents. One would see the cut on the walls, perfect in size, the size of shipping crates where the work of German explorers cut out from the walls the glorious cave paintings to be hauled back to Berlin. But even in Berlin these are all that remains, the rest of the loot was destroyed by Allied bombing during the second world war. But if they were left, the intolerant locals would have destroyed them, this is still an area of predominantly Muslims.

Albert von le coq

The book, 'Buried treasures of Chines Turkestan' written by Albert Von Le Coq, in German and translated into English in 1928 speaks of.... ' the statue stands on a semi circular throne of a lotus plant, the leaves of which was probably red with white edges, ' He may not be describing this particular statue that he brought from China's Xin Jiang province. The packing around the 1900's must be so rudimentary that I'm amazed that this statue survived the way it did. They had to wrap it up well and then the camels would bring it to the nearest train station to be sent to Moscow and then on to Berlin.

Berlin Dahlem museum

The images, though found in China, don't look Chinese, they are 'info-Iranian.' Here where East meets West on the silk road.

Ethnological museum, Dahlem, Berlin

I came to Berlin to visit two museums, the Pergamon and this one. It took me an hour on the underground and 2 days, the first day they were closed, the second they were opened. Wow. I've heard of the treasures taken out from the Gobi desert of Western China and many were destroyed during the Allied bombing of the second world war. This was what's left. Imagine my excitement, I could hardly contain myself.

Ethnological museum, Dahlem

Map of Western China, (not really clear) where East meets West on the ancient silk road. Here refugees, mostly religious refugees flee Central Asia and the far borders of the Byzantine empire. Manichaens and Zorastrians leave Europe to settle here. Later Chinese monks goes to India to learn about Buddhism and return with a plethora of ideas which were translated into sutras, banners and frescoes. Here in the Gobi desert of Western China, thousands of caves were made into temples and the German explorers helped themselves to whatever they could unload from the caves and load them onto camel trains to bring back to Germany. Most of these were destroyed by Allied bombings during the second world war. What remains is in this museum in Berlin. These were from mostly the Bezilik caves in Western China. The English explorer, Sir Aurel Stein, went to another area, the Dunhuang caves near Turpan. He didn't have the technology to remove panels of frescoes that the Germans had. He removed thousands of sutras, he was followed by the French explorer, Paul Pelliot and later, Count Otani from Japan and even the Americans.' Today these treasures are found in Germany, England, Japan, Paris and the US. I think the museum in New Delhi, India has some also. I went to Dunhuang a few years ago, there are still hundreds of cave temples left with incredible Buddhist frescoes.
It was a huge effort getting to Dahlem, took 2 changes of underground train and an hour to get there. I went on a Monday but it was closed. I had to return the next morning. It was well worth it.

The Spree river, Berlin

 The Spree river surrounds museum island where some of the world's greatest museums are located. This is an Unesco World Heritage site.

 It flows round most of Berlin and new buildings of glass and steel are built. These are the government offices.

As it round the bend here, cafes and restaurants are located and deck chairs are laid out. Hard working Berliners sit, relax and have drinks after work. I'm envious.