Dresden, 21st July

We awoke to sunlight streaming through the trees at our campsite. We have stayed in some lovely campsites - our previous trip with Tour d'Afrique had us staying in very poor camping grounds, so it is great to find that there are many lovely places to stay.

The sun was very welcome, after so many days of rain. It actually remained fine all day also!
Left camp in a convoy at 8am, for a slow ride into Dresden. Being a Saturday morning there was not too much traffic on the roads. So we arrived at our hotel at 10.15am...too early to check in. We were able to leave our bikes in the hotel car park and go out into the city. As John and I had bought our laundry with us, the first stop was the laundromat, a 10 minute aw from the hotel. The washing on, we went for a coffee at the nearby shopping area. Then back to dry the clothes - only one drier was functioning so fortunately we were the only ones waiting to use it.

Returned to the hotel through one of the main shopping malls, stopping at a sports store to purchase a few things. We were able to get into our rooms, as it was after midday. So collected our bags from the truck which was parked in a large park about 200m away, and hung our tent awning in the shower to dry. As we are going to Prague by train in the morning, we packed the bare essentials for our two nights there into our backpacks, and repacked everything else to go back into the truck.

The Holiday Inn Hotel is in the centre of the city. We wandered into the Altmarkt and the Neumarkt, both large squares in the area of Dresden that was totally destroyed in the War. It has been rebuilt very attractively.

We had to take our bags and bikes to the truck to be loaded for storage while we go to Prague, and then went to dinner at a South African restaurant with Stewart. After dinner we wandered around the Squares enjoying the ambience. The temperature was pleasant, and there were people everywhere. All older people, very well behaved, eating at restaurant tables on the street and standing around watching street buskers. There was a young chap playing a grand piano on the back of a horse-drawn carriage. Around another corner was a trio of young operatic singers, who all had beautiful voice. The whole atmosphere was very pleasant and enjoyable.