Scattershot Germany post

I've not been feeling particularly focused of late, but when do I ever? And while there's some obvious low-lying fruit I should be able to compose a post around--say, the Vermeers that were the reason we chose Dresden as our vacation destination--I'd like to have a little more brain capacity for such a thing. (Oh! The laughter at the suggestion that thought goes into these rambling posts of mine.)

For whatever reason, I'm not highlighting Vermeer today. Instead, I'm making some random observations about travel and leaning heavily on a handful of photos that I've taken the time to save and name:

Observation #1: Poppies really are a thing in European fields.
We rented bikes on a Saturday, not realizing that it was the day of the MammutMarsch in Dresden and that many of the participants would be walking on the paths along the Elba that we wanted to bike. Happily, the crowds thinned after a bit and soon we had the path mostly to ourselves. I was quite amazed by the fields packed with peas--how do they harvest them???--but it was the maybe-fallow fields of poppies and bachelor buttons that caused me to stop and take some photos. 

 

Observation #2: Sometimes art is particularly relevant.
 I'm glad, truly I am, that we spent as much time as we did in museums, admiring the work of old masters. As above, I wanted to go to Dresden (and Braunschweig) to see Vermeers I'd never seen before and I'm so glad I did. But sometimes, looking up at works of art, walking quietly along marble floors, and just being on your feet for hours at a time gets a little, well, tiring. And sometimes my brain goes a little wonky under such conditions so when I saw "Christ at the column," a sculpture Balthasar Permoser completed in 1723, I didn't so much see our tortured Lord and Savior as I saw another museum goer desperately in need of a break for coffee and pastry in the nearest cafe.

Observation #2, Exhibit A

But Christ wasn't the only bit of artwork that shared my pain. At the risk of spoiling the eventual Vermeer post, I'll mention that the second Vermeer at Dresden's Museum of Old Masters was something of a disappointment. Okay, I downright disliked it. It's not so much--or not entirely--that the subject matter (it's called "The Procuress") is distasteful as that I just didn't care for the painting. There's no window, for one thing, so the light thing isn't going on. I don't know; the people are all just unpleasant. I didn't like it. I was shocked not to like it. It made me a little cranky. But the very same room contains Hendrik de Keyser's "Head of a Crying Boy" who seemed likewise a bit cranky and disappointed.

Observation #2, Exhibit B

 Observation #3: Our Dresden rental really was the best.
I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but I really just loved the place we stayed in Dresden. (Have I mentioned that it was hella-cheap too?) Maybe I was inclined to see things as art because we spent so much time in art museums, but, well, I couldn't stop taking photographs of our wee kitchen. Okay, I've tried as hard as I can to make this photo fit the "observation" theme, but it's just not coming. Just join me in sighing wistfully over that teapot and the colors and even the light.

(Hmmm; I neglected to straighten this one)

Observation #4: Museums frequently have accessible restrooms.
I first noticed this several years ago at the Albertina in Vienna, but I was most appreciative of it on our Gemany trip when the bakery we were passing time in while our laundry tumbled turned out to have no bathroom and the public convenience in the square was inconveniently unavailable. We stopped by the Erich Kästner Museum gift shop and discovered that that's where the museum keeps its public restrooms. (Naturally, more tea and coffee was purchased, along with some books; there's really no such thing as a truly free restroom.) A few days later I found that the bathrooms at the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum can be reached without necessarily having a ticket to the exhibits. Of course, we had tickets because why would we be in Braunschweig if not to see their Vermeer? (The greater question of why Braunschweig even has a Vermeer remains unanswered.)

Truth to tell, I don't know which toilet featured this helpful pictogram; it could have been at KEF.

I hate to end this post with a toilet-related photo so I'll add a teaser for a future post:
Observation #5: Dresden is pretty darned photogenic.
It's a sad fact that the Allies bombed the hell out of Dresden during World War II for much the same reason that the Ed Norton character in Fight Club pummels another character to pieces: "I just wanted to destroy something pretty," is my recollection of what he says. But Dresden gamely decided to resurrect / rebuild a lot of what was destroyed and they did an amazing job of it.  I couldn't figure out which bits of buildings, etc. were truly hundreds of years old and which had been standing for less than a century. As Scott pointed out, the world has been burning a lot of coal until fairly recently so the blackened look came naturally.

A bit of Dresden "Zwinger"