The River Elbe

Loschwitz as Winter Wonderland

Reorganization of the zodiac notwithstanding, I am a water sign (Cancer), and I loved living near the magnificent body of water that is the River Elbe here in Dresden. The first three months I lived on a central, low-lying Platz on the right/northern bank, but in general the terrain is elevated there, with scattered small vineyards along the higher slopes. I couldn't quite see the river from my bedroom window, but just around the bend in the road stood the famous Blaues Wunder ("Blue Wonder"--first suspension bridge in Europe without pylons in the river). The last four months I lived on the left/southern bank, a few minutes' walk from the Marienbrücke, with the Neustadt across the river. One of my favorite memories from this time will definitely be the sight of the beautiful, reconstructed baroque buildings of the Altstadt, seen from a Strassenbahn while crossing one of Dresden's many bridges over the Elbe.

There are currently seven major bridges. In addition to the Blaues Wunder and the Marienbrücke there are the Albertbrücke, the Carolabrücke, the Augustusbrücke, the Flügelwegbrücke, and the Autobahnbrücke. The controversial new bridge is the Waldschlößchenbrücke. The Dresden Elbe Valley had been listed as a World Heritage Site, but when Dresdners voted in a 2005 referendum to build another bridge to relieve traffic congestion, the valley was listed as "Endangered." The city backed away from the plans, but a court ordered that the referendum had to stand, and in 2009 the Dresden Elbe Valley was de-listed as a World Heritage site (only the second time that has ever happened). Many people are upset because the bridge will be modern-looking and quite long (probably one reason why a bridge wasn't built across that stretch of river before). But I can attest that it is necessary, because at the moment there is really only one Strassenbahn line that serves that stretch of city, and when it's late or not running, you don't have many options.


I decided to take a picture of the Elbe at the beginning of each month, as a memento of my time in Dresden. Below is a chain of images of the river, the first three looking toward my first apartment (Oct., Nov., end of Dec.) from the far side of the Blaues Wunder. In the first photo, you can see there was Hochwasser (flooding) when I arrived. I waited to take the November photo until after I had run my errands, and by the time I was ready to walk back across the river, the beautiful morning had clouded over. The early December photo is at the start of this post; we had snow on the ground continuously from the week of Thanksgiving into January. The third photo below I took on moving day the last week of the year.

 

  

The new views are from the near side of the Marienbrücke at the beginning of January (still snow). While I was gone on the East Coast in mid-January, the snow finally melted, as the February photo shows. The March image is unfortunately over-exposed, but the April one hints at the nice blue skies we sometimes had. The bottom image shows my last day, cloudy in Dresden at the end of April.

Of course, the Elbe isn't always beautiful. In 2002 there was terrible flooding. The stereotypical German Stube (hunting-themed pub) down the street from my second apartment had a mark at least waist-high on the wall, showing how high the water was then--and that wasn't exactly close to the river. Here's an image from the river-side amphitheater at Schloss Pillnitz with markings of historical floods; the 2002 deluge is the one off to the right, as high the epic flood of March 31, 1845.


I am in Leipzig now, which has a river (the Weisse Elster), but is somehow not as defined by it as Dresden, "the Florence of the Elbe," perhaps because as the river runs through the city, it is surrounded by parkland (a flood zone?). As it turns out, Leipzig has lots of parks and Schrebergärten (those little garden colonies), so even without direct access to the Weisse Elster, the big-city architecture is broken up by green space. I am finding Leipzig a prettier city than I had originally thought.


Editor's note: This, my farewell post for Dresden, was slightly delayed by the difficulty of having laptop, camera, cable, and internet all in one place at the same time.