Meissen

Across the river in the town square of Meissen is the Frauenkirche (church) whose bells are made out of Porcelain my the Meissen factory. This was a major technological feat since they had to be caste and re-caste until the size and thickness was just right to create the correct sound and pitch. I was told that once the wall went down the town of Meissen lost have its population (30,000 down to 15,000) and the attendance at this church dropped down to almost zero. Fortunately, the population at least is back up but I do not know about the attendance at the church.

Parts of Meissen still have homes that are either bullet ridden or are partly destroyed from the war. It seems that for some it just was not worth rebuilding. I usually got up way before breakfast so that I could walk down the trail along the Elbe River across the far bridge and back down into the town square. Window shopping was always fun and I found a small restaurant that I could purchase a tea and my daily vitamin (funny how it looked and tasted just like a fine pastry). It was interesting that as I came back across the main bridge I always seemed to run into some coming the other way and whether the could speak English our not, they always stop to talk. I really enjoyed that and appreciated how friendly every was. The one thing I missed was not having a newspaper in English.