A TALE OF TWO CITIES

(that's looking back to Altstadt and the semperopera, above stage fly area)

Across the Elbe, on the other side of its wide sandy banks, beyond the grand boulevard of Albertstrasse, past the fountains of Albertplatz, is Neustadt (New Town).

(albertplatz fountain)

A far cry from the gravitas and gothic grandeur of Altstadt (Old Town) it is actually an older part of Dresden and survived the shock and awe bombing more intact. (It's worth noting that there has been an exchange of relics between the Catherdrals of Dresden and Conventry in a gesture of reconciliation.)

Altstadt is grand urban planning and spacious thoroughfares of the restoration (and where the busking is serious cello, bassoon and oboe, violin, with Ave Maria top of the charts, or penny spinners). Neustadt is intertwining and criss-crossing residential streets with bars, restaurants, clubs, and counterculture. Beyond on slightly higher ground are some quite grand bourgeois villas. On a Saturday, we wandered through carried along by the sounds of street music, the smell of food stalls, and especially the vibrancy of the street life - young families, teenagers, groupies, punks, gays, and not a policeman in sight, and nothing but a sense of mutual respect and tolerance.

The scale back there is big; the scale here is human.

This is a intoxicating bipolar place.