More Dresden

After pigging out at the hotel's Easter brunch, Florian and I toured the unlucky but still gorgeous Semper Opera.  It's been destroyed by fire, war and flood but it keeps coming back lovelier than ever.

Our guide explained in German that most of the somewhat gaudy lobby is either fake wood or marble.  Florian whispered a simultaneous translation for me and several lucky Chinese tourists who moved closer to eavesdrop.

There's nothing fake about the auditorium which can seat more than 1,300 people in four tiers.

In case of fire, an iron curtain drops to protect the stage.  Give the designers credit for a playful sense of irony and great acoustics.

Oddly enough, the Semper Opera House doesn't include a single image of the man who conceived the original building.  We had to hunt down this statue after the tour.  Well done, Gottfried!

Too bad the Grunes Gewolbe is off-limits to shutterbugs.  This postcard doesn't begin to convey how much bling is on display in a series of themed rooms, each more fabulous than the one before it.

Next up: the Zwinger Palace.  It sounds like a place Lily von Shtupp from Blazing Saddles might patronize if she was looking for group sex, but it was the cultural center of the Augustus John's court in the early eighteenth century.  He's also the emperor that gathered much of the loot in the Grunes Gewolbe.

 

So many fountains and sculptures decorate the former fortress!

Florian wears his crown quite well, don't you think?