Today was our final full day in Dresden, and we decided to spend it mostly recovering and getting ready for the next stage of our trip in Italy. One of the things we needed to address was a distinct lack of clean clothes around the hotel room, and after several hours of doing laundry we have concluded that Laundromats are pretty much the same experience all around the world. The German ones are perhaps cleaner than usual, but they’re all pretty much exercises in boredom. For dinner we asked the hotel concierge for recommendations (over Steven’s protests). After procuring a couple of candidate restaurants, we headed over to the Altstadt and found Sophienkeller, the first restaurant recommended. Like most restaurants, it had indoor and outdoor seating, and seemed like a reasonable place. We walked inside as I was hoping to find a rebuilt beer hall – the kind of place where beer steins would be clinking and maidens would be scattering about – a place that would suddenly erupt in boisterous song. Instead we found ourselves behind a very excited tour group wildly snapping photos. Following their lead, I pulled my camera out only to notice utter embarrassment on Steven’s face. Before acknowledging the embarrassment I too took some photos. The maidens were definitely scurrying about along with heavily made up, over the top costumed characters. We had ended up in the one restaurant Steven had been adamantly avoiding: the Gastronomie, one of a series of themed Germanic restaurants.  His co-workers had said of the place, “one does not go there to eat”; now we were stuck in a German Medieval Times restaurant. The barmaid offered us a seat along with a larger party at a “traditional trestle table”, a prime seat on the swinging carousel, or a spot outdoors in the fairly normal-looking square, which we chose. Unfortunately the only somewhat redeeming quality of the place is its entertainment, which is not apart of the outdoor seating. It was by far the worst meal in Germany. (Note from the editor – this may or may not have resulted in Libby’s restaurant-choice privileges being revoked. Also, never trust the concierge at the Westin Bellevue. Libby should have known better after trying their recommendation for “an excellent bakery for breakfast”).

After that less than ideal experience we walked around the Altstadt in search of Dresdner Eierschecke, a local cheesecake-like desert. We ended up wandering into the main square where the Frauenkirche and other historic sites are, and eventually stumbled across a nice restaurant in the shadow of the church. There we had some excellent hot chocolate and Eierschecke while sitting outdoors, and wonder of wonders, saw green vegetables being served to the other patrons around us! This place was noted for future visits, as it looked a whole lot better than where we’d just finished eating. The rest of the evening was spent walking around Dresden and practicing photography skills along the waterfront, before we finally headed back to pack our bags.