A year ago yesterday, I was in Dresden, on a gloomy, cold day. Despite the weather, the city's famed architectural beauty was well evident.
Pity we spent only a few hours there, mostly indoors (in the new synagogue and the museum of Baroque art. I would have liked to have seen more of the main square, and in sufficient sunshine to highlight the lovely color combinations, as well as the gold paint of the angel atop the dome of the reconstructed Frauenkirche. But the roiling gray clouds in this photo kind of look dramatic, anyway.
How horrible to hear this week of the
threats posed by flooding - only 11 years after the last "flood of the century."
(I think we should probably stop tempting fate by saying things like that.)
During WWII, Dresden was nearly bombed into nothingness. It took literally decades of work to return it to a semblance of its former state. (The Frauenkirche was finished only in the past few years!) And now Nature is encroaching via the river Elbe, which is right in the heart of the city.
Our empathy and warm wishes go out to the people of Dresden and the whole region affected by the flooding, in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic - all full of historical site worth preserving for future generations. And full of people trying to live there now, as waters take over their homes and businesses and public places.
