Astra's actionfigures in Action

Christmas market at the Dresden Frauenkirche. They have real sheep in the manger scene!











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My whole Dresden tag is full of Photobucket pictures so I want to fill it with new ones. Last July we took a walk down to Blasewitz (with the Blue Wonder steel bridge) and Wachwitz (with the TV tower)

This bridge is over 100 years old and was the first that did not need a pillar in the middle of the river, so that the steamboats could go through easier.





View into the other direction, the TV tower in the far distance.





We're at the other side of the river Elbe now, I am standing with my back to it.





The TV tower was built in 1969. Dresden is surrounded by hills so it was needed to bring radio and TV waves into the valley. That's why Dresden also did not get any West German TV. Those that lived up the hills did.
Nowadays the tower is only used for mobile phone communications. Also you used to go up to the top and have a look down, but it has been closed for ages. There is a group of people who wants it to be opened again. I was up there last time as a child. I still remember the elevator which went up quite fast and made your belly churn. And up there you were outside, not behind glass.





And this is one of the many flood marks in the area. These houses are not directly at the river, so you can't imagine it rising that high and coming that far.

From top my sign reads 2002 - 1845 - 1890 - 2013 - 1862 - 1876 - 1900 - 1920 - 1940 - 1895 - 2006

Imagine these poor people, having just rebuilt and probably still paying of the credit, when they were hit again.

As a child, I would look at these high water marks but my father reasured me that it would not happen again in our time because now precautions have been taken (dams etc.) so the first one came as a surprise, it was no slowly rising river where you could prepare, but coming overnight from the hills in a flash flood, destroying everything in its way. Whole houses swept away. The streets looked like after a bombing. They said such a bad one would only happen every 1000 years and then we got another one just 10 years later. But they have taken huge effort now to build new bridges and change the rivers, so the inner city stayed dry this time.

Our local flower shop at the street corner always has the best shop window decorations. They are for sale also, I often have bought something I've never seen anywhere else before. I want to show you the winter decoration they have right now as it is way too cute. More detailed pictures under the cut.

( More detailed pictures under the cut )

Yesterday we got our first snow of the winter. I did not want to take the same pictures like last year (of my street and the little park where I work), you can see them here if you like: http://dieastra.dreamwidth.org/177352.html

We usually don't get snow for very long in Dresden so deep down in the valley, so it is always exciting for children. After work I did a quick walk in our big park in the city center.

The ducks and swans have only a small piece of lake left to swim in:



I was looking whether it was safe already to get the skates out, but maybe better not:



The building at the other side is a little restaurant / café called "Carolaschlößchen" (the lake is called Carolasee, named after our last queen)

We interrupt our "Grand Budapest Hotel" location hunting and look today at castle Moritzburg which is located near Dresden. Everyone in Germany and probably whole Europe knows the German/Czech movie "Three hazelnuts for Cinderella" ("Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel", „Tri orisky pro Popelku“) which was filmed here back in the Seventies. It's a classic that airs in TV at least a dozen times each year. It's something that the whole of Germany share, no matter whether you grew up in the East or West.

These pictures were taken last year in August. So no snow like in the movie! If you want to visit, they also have an exhibition with lots of original costumes and other stuff there now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCMSqmJXv14

It's located in the middle of a lake:





And this is a regular sight in Moritzburg. The cars are advised to go slowly and the horse carriages always have right of way:

Part 1 - Part 2

Well, everyone on my friends list (especially those that I dragged up the mountain ;) ) should know this view by now, as I keep posting about it in different seasons and with varities of fog... I've never seen it in the snow though!



It's the view from the Bastei Bridge in Saxon Switzerland.



See that little extension in the middle of the bridge? This is where they were standing:



And that's me and the Doctor!



PS for everyone who liked the rucksack I got for my birthday - this is why I chose it as the pattern looks similar to my favorite skirt.

Part 1 was here

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the Dresden Zwinger I actually remember reading at the time about a motor bike chase being filmed here but unless I blinked and missed it I don't remember the guy on the motor bike driving around? Maybe he wasn't allowed to, to not destroy the walkways? Or maybe the scene was cut for TV? (I already made an entry a while ago about the Zwinger also inspiring Cinderella's castle in the new Disney movie: http://dieastra.dreamwidth.org/122263.html )







The entry to the Zwinger itself is for free. I often like to walk through there and watch all the tourist groups. There are lots of museums in these buildings. We saw a few in the movie. The most famous one is the painting gallery:



They also were in the armmory and sculpture collection in that scene., but I didn't want to take screenshots of everything. The most famous painting in the gallery is the Sistine Madonna by Raphael. See those angels at the bottom of the painting? They have a life on their own, being everywhere. If we got some money each time they are used, we would be rich ;)

hamsterwoman with you I'd go to the museum that has lots of old science instruments, often made very crafty and beautifully. It just got re-opened recently after a lot of reconstruction

Catching up with some photograph posts before it's too late. This is my try on the super moon. I photographed it on Sunday evening, the evening before it was officially happening on Monday.

I've shown you pictures of this beautiful landscape that's only about half an hour by train away from Dresden, in Summertime before . But these pictures - specially posted for my new friend topum - show the same place in December 2014, on a very rainy and foggy day. It made for beautiful pictures, the kind that you can find in calendars. Please have a look under the cut! Enjoy!

( Many pictures behind the cut )

And one bonus picture from my little Germany trip. I couldn’t fit my figures in there but want to show it anyway as it's too cute. Meet Tuffi, the circus elephant who rode the Wuppertal suspension railway in 1950. Only she didn’t like it and jumped through the window into the river. She was not hurt thankfully.

The "real" picture is a photo montage long before photoshop was invented.