Day 28

            Another slow day.  Had breakfast in Freiberg, then headed for the Freiberger Dom (a Dom in Germany is a cathedral, whether it has a “dome” on it or not.)  This one is Lutheran.  When I was here 9 years ago with my brother and sister-in-law and nephew, we stopped to visit it.  The area was quite shabby, and they were doing some fix-up work in the Dom.

            Most of that is done.  The outside looks freshly painted, and the inside is cleaned up quite a bit, but still looks like “old stuff” – which it is.  We were early, so walked around town a bit, visiting the castle which is in the process of renovation.  We got tickets to visit the Dom, and one of the tour guides spoke some English and had some time since we were early, so she showed us around.  We got to go into a little chapel in a separate building attached to the former cloister.  The cloister was jammed full of gravestones from the family of the former Elector.  Some very impressive other things as well:  altar, statues, etc.  Then we went into the church.  It was just as impressive as I remember it.  For organists, there are two Gottfried Silbermann organs in this building – TWO!  - he was J.S. Bach’s favorite organ builder.  We couldn’t get close to them, unfortunately. 

            The former “choir” of the Dom has been converted into an electoral “cemetery.”  The ceiling is stunning – 3 dimensional angel musicians – over 30 of them – imbedded into the ceiling.  As they were refurbishing it a number of years ago, they discovered that many of the instruments the angels were playing were real renaissance musical instruments, and many of them were known only from renaissance books.  No one had ever seen a real instrument like that, and here the ceiling was full of them!  So they cleaned them up, made copies, and put the originals back into the ceiling!

            There are also two distinct pulpits in the Dom, a crucifix grouping that dates to the 12^th century, and much, much more.  It’s quite a place.

            We headed then for Dresden.  I still was feeling the effects of the cold I caught, and Dea wasn’t feeling too well either.  The GPS took us through some windey, narrow country roads again – didn’t know if we were ever going to find our way out of the country.  I was even afraid we’d run out of gas before we got to Dresden.  But we found gas, and the GPS led us right to the door of the hotel.

            Again, we were early, and the room was not ready, so we sat in the car for about two hours waiting to get in.  By that time, sitting in the sun, neither of us felt very good, so we did rest time again.  Went next door for a bite of supper, and tonight we are just laid back.

            Tomorrow we will head into the zentrum of the city, and visit the Zwinger palace museum, the Frauenkirche, and whatever else we can do in a day.  S