Freiberg LDS Temple, Saxony Switzerland, and Dresden

So, it seems that when you make plans to go to the temple things arise to try and stop you from going.  During the 4 day weekend in October 9-12, 2014 Whitney and I decided that we wanted to take a low-key trip to the LDS Temple in Frieberg, Germany and then continue on to do some fall time hiking in the Saxon Switzerland National Park. Even though we planned a relaxing weekend this trip ended up being pretty stressful for us, but we did manage to see all we wanted to see and experience a beautiful temple and outdoor hiking area.

Our stress started the first night when we had used hotels.com to book a hotel room in Freiburg and were not notified that we had to check in to the hotel by 8pm.  The email said that our room was confirmed, so we left right after work on Thursday to get to the hotel by 10 pm.  However, when we got to the hotel they had given our room away and gave us a room in an old apt in another building with no internet and just two small beds (After the trip Hotels.com did refund the stay).

The next day, Friday morning, we went to the temple and were able to have a really good experience there.

 Holiness to the Lord.

 

 Saxon Switzerland is famous for the Bastei Bridge (basteibrucke).  The roads going out to the national park were super windy and that is never good for my poor Whitney who gets car sick anyway.   Also, along the way we had our first camera speeding ticket here in Germany.  We hear that it will be the first of many.  Yes, here they have speed camera that takes a photo of you if you are driving over the limit,  but we pressed on with the hope that a weekend in nature would help us let go of our stress.  So onto the next hotel in Bad Schandou... Well, when we got to the hotel we had read our email wrong (which was in German) and the hotel was booked, so we had no hotel reserved for the next two nights.  We went to the town information center and fortunately they were able to book us a room for the weekend.  We relaxed at the hotel that night and walked around the cute town that was located on the Elbe River.  We had Chinese food, which was interesting because the chicken was fried similar to how to Germans fry schnitzel here in Germany.  It was served in a sauce that is normally found in Chinese food but less spicy.  The dinner was like a merge of German and Chinese food....good memory.

Now on to the hiking...

 The Bastei Bridge was built in 1851 out of sandstone and leads to the remnants of the Felsenburg Neurathen (Medieval Castle).

After the Bastei Bridge we did some hiking in Saxon Switzerland.  We chose a hike that was going to take us to a waterfall.  The name escapes me now but the hike was fun because there were hand railings placed into the cliff walls as we walked and the area was still so green, but we were a week or two early for the Fall leaves I guess...  

The Waterfall,  really a small trickle of water but pretty nonetheless.

We were going to hike for another day in the national park, but we felt that the trip was spent, so on our way home we stopped in Dresden for lunch and to do some sightseeing. 

 Dresden was so badly bombed in WWII that the city was pretty much destroyed.  As many of the original stones that could be used to rebuild the city were. That is why you see the white stone (new) and the Blackened stone (old) on all of the historic buildings.  It is really amazing.

We ate lunch at the Guinness book-certified "worlds most beautiful dairy shop," Pfunds Molkerei, founded in 1880.  The tiles are all hand-painted tiles by Villeroy and boch.  Lunch was pretty good, potato soup and rice pudding.

I love Graffiti and street art, so we went to the Outer Neustadt area where there was tons of street art and fun shops.

When all is said and done, although the trip was super stressful, it was also amazing.  Looking back, it is much easier to see the beauty of the areas we visited.  I would definitely love to go back and visit Dresden some more.