Dresden

We easily could have spent more than a week in Berlin, but now we are on our way to Prague with one night in Dresden. Dresden is a strange place--they are partway through the process of rebuilding the old city back into its historic form. Knowing that most of the old city was destroyed in the firebombing it is strange to see the historic buildings.

Our hotel, Hotel Kipping, was built in 1884 a private home, then served as a boarding house, then a hotel. It was bought in 1932 by the family that currently runs it. During the war it became a factory making diapers, which was nationalized in 1972 (why so late?). In 1990 the family reprivatized the business and in 1993 converted it back to a hotel.

I can't imagine how it feels to people to have lived through so many radical changes in their city and their lives. They seem to want particularly to erase the memory of communism.