Dresden

So nice to see those images of Dresden Chris.................a spectacular place to visit set amidst extremely scenic Saxon countryside known locally as "Little Switzerland" and with the nearby towns an cities of Leipzig, Meissen, and further off Berlin; to say nothing of Wroclaw in Poland and Teplice in the Czech Republic where there is the opportunity to go "border hopping" ~ a truly interesting place to visit.

TB1 , Pal Arse Gull , K1pper and myself went there a few years ago using a £15 each cheap flight from Ryanair (Stansted to Berlin Schoenfeld) and a hired car to do our travelling and the first jolly wheeze of the day was to turn the SatNav to Polish which convinced TB1 that it was suffering "interference from over the nearby Polish border"

I well remember my shock at spotting that "mosque" as we drove down the hill into the city from the Autobahnn little knowing that the now cultural centre was as you say a cigarette factory. The reason behind the architecture was inspired by the fact that all the tobacco used was sourced from Turkey!

Being British, we were naturally a little apprehensive visiting the scene of dreadful carpet bombing from the Second World War and wondered how we would be received by the older generation, but to be honest Dresden is a city of young people; with a wonderful "student ambiance" about the Neustadt, built over the Elbe from the ruins of the shattered Baroque old city. Far from there being a "nightclub" atmosphere, it's more of a mellow "coffee bar/pub" lifestyle, dark dark cobbled back streets and wide and imposing main thoroughfares with hardly a car in sight in this tram dominated transport hub.

Dominating Central Park is the reason for our visit there................the mouldering old concrete bowl of the Rudolf Harzig Stadion ~ low contoured completely open save for a small covered Tribune over the dressing room area and seats built for Germans by Germans. By that I mean so ruddy high I looked like a Dartmoor Piskey perched on top of mine with my feet swinging in the air (yer average "Eric" in this city must be at least two metres tall!) We were there to see Dinamo Dresden take on St Pauli in the Bundsliga 3 (East) yes the mighty D-I-N-Aaaaaa-m-O have fallen that far in German football rather like Leeds United in this country.

Nevertheless there was a capacity 25,000 there and whilst TB1 and I watched from the seats we had purchased on the half way line, the other two managed to sneak in with the travelling Bohemian Army of St Pauli over in the corner.

Anyone who has an impression of German military style law and order should try to get into one of their club games................absolutely NO queuing of any sort, merely the biggest and fattest to say nothing of the most ignorant get in first and anyone daft enough to uphold the "English" tradition of orderly queuing would get left behind ~ simple as!

TB1 was so impressed by this his first experience of German football that he immediately became a Dinamo fan and I must say it just had to be the impressive roar and military style obedience of the cheer leaders that attracted him rather than the football played out on an appallingly heavy pitch beneath a set of those monstrous floodlights so beloved of the Communist world.

We were told a wonderful tale of the old Communist days of how the local bureaucracy on the Tribune used to slope off ten minutes before the end if the home team were losing and yet their ranks would always be swelled by late arriving military figures with their rows of medals and huge flat army caps whenever it became apparent that Dinamo were going to win........................apparently they used to sit in Central Park in their Zills waiting for the signal that all was well for a spot of glory sharing, whilst if it was the other way they would piss off back to barracks leaving the local "trilbies" to face the wrath of the populace! ;D