It’s interesting what some sun can do to brighten up a city. The dark stone structures that make up a huge part of Dresden’s old center aren’t as forbidding given a little bit of spotlight, and it’s sheer luck that we were able to see them up close with the change in weather. It’s hard to choose a picture to represent Dresden given how surprisingly attractive it is but the photos below hopefully sum up its grandeur and stateliness in those figurative thousand words.

Particularly impressive apart from their amazing Christmas market was the collection of old masters in the Dresdner Zwinger complex that turned in a substantial showing with its roomful of Canalettos, and a fairly large Vermeer of Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window, among others. Owing to not having done any diligent research and fully focused on seeing the Christmas market, I completely missed Raphael’s Sistine Madonna – though as I later learned I did unwittingly take a picture of her from afar.

I doubt I’ll be back in surprising Dresden anytime soon but when I do it’d likely be around the holiday season – a little less surprised, a lot more prepared, and with even more anticipation.