September 10: Transition

 We took the train from Dresden to Prague today. I liked Dresden more than I expected while at the same time, I'm happy to be going back to Prague. On the way down on the train, Nan suggested to me that we spend an extra night in Prague. Not sure if that was to spend a little extra time in Prague or to  make for an easier transition to start motorcycling. Either way, it seemed like a good idea as we have begged the hotel to let us stay an extra night (they are virtually full; but we may have to switch rooms tomorrow) and now that we know there is a decent place to store the motorcycle, it makes the decision a little easier. I'll go over in the morning after a leisurely breakfast then ride around and get comfortable with the bike. 

The train trip down was fairly uneventful. We were seeing things we had mostly seen on the way to Dresden on the bicycles so there are not too many photos to see. When we got to Prague, we exited the train one stop early; I knew there were two stations in Prague but as we were entering the city, my Google Maps was updating slow enough that it wasn't clear where we were so we ended up in the streets of Prague not knowing where we were in relation to where we had been and not sure how we were going to get to the hotel. If we had exited at the proper station, it would have been only a 20 minute walk to the hotel but where we were it looked like 40 minutes. We trailed to hail a cab, catch an uber, get a bus and eventually jumped on a tram that Google Maps said would take us close to the hotel (false - got us to within a 25 minute walk) but we managed with no ill effects. All part of the adventure (I'm told).

Many of these you have seen before.

Unfortunately, the Spot tracker had difficulty to ping a satellite from the train, so the route track doesn't look like much.

Different perspective from our Prague hotel room.

September 9 Saxony

We had decided, based on the forecast for inclement weather that yesterday would be the day around town and today a day for a river boat ride. Even though it was the direction from which we had come, it would give us a perspective from the water rather than from one side of the river. It would be a low impact way to spend the day. 

When we bought the tickets, we were asked if we wanted to spend a couple of hours at the furthest most upstream point, which was Pillnatz. We had thought about this and thought we could decide when we get there but they wanted a commitment up front; not sure if that was for planning the number of passengers for seating or in case the boat sinks and they want to match the bodies with the number of tickets sold. We were actually under the impression what we were going to Pirna, which is further and where we had had lunch one day when bicycling; I didn't mind that idea because there were plenty of restaurants and potentially some shopping and things to see. Pillnatz really didn't have anything except houses. There were a few restaurants but being a Monday afternoon, everything was closed so we ended up just walking for an hour before finding ourselves back at the boat dock. It turned out that the one restaurant we could find open was there and it thappened to be a really good restaurant with its own bbakery. Nan and I were really tempted to have a piece of cake from the place but there wasn't quite enough time to do it justice. But it looked incredibly good. 

One of our rides today. This is the smaller of the two boats and the one that brought us back.

Lots of "skulling" action of the river.

Pillnitz Castle which opened in 1790. It had undergone extensive renovations at the turn of the last century, just before being flooded in the flood of 2002.

Car ferry across the river.

Pumps driving the paddle wheel on our tour boat.

There was a window into the paddle well.

Even though this private observatory was mentioned on the boat tour, I couldn't discerne the name. 

Funicular in Dresden

That Blue Bridge again!

The is the bridge of the boat that took us to Pillatz. I had been watching the pilot to use the wheel to steer the boat but he just used the little joystick to his left.

The construction of this bridge resulted in the Unesco designation of the area being removed as it was the habitat of a rare breed of bat.

Shoes, for the taking.... if you can get them.

We watched this boat turn around on the river. Hard to believe that length of boat can turn completely around, not just based on its length but also for not grounding itself. Our boat had done the same earlier.

This was a bonus. When we returned from our boat cruise, there was a food festival happening on Augustus Bridge, near to the old town square. It was basically a "food festival" with many tables and pavillions with food provided. The food was provided by various groups and they ranged from activity groups to social groups to humanitarian to cultural to religous. Dance groups, church groups, UNICEF, a club for drag queens (complete with face painting) and there was plenty of live music for entertainment. Even though there was plenty of police presence, it wasn't in anyway agressive or threatening.

 

Later, we went for pizza in the square and a protest march went through. The march was a demonstration against fascism and had a substantial police escort. 

You can see a swastika with a strike-through.

"Diplomacy over weapons"

"Against xenophobia & hate populism"