Back to Germany

We pulled into Dresden late in the evening after taking four different trains beginning in Como, Italy in the early morning. During the next three days, we visited a nearby medieval city, Meissen, famous for its production of China porcelein. We walked up to the impressive 13th century Gothic cathedral constructed on a hill overlooking the city. Maren and I biked along a beautiful bike path along the Elbe River while the others drove. The next day Walter and Goodrun (Maren's parents) joined us from Schwerin (up north)and we all walked to the neighborhood train stain and boarded a train that went along the Elbe River to the "Saxony Alps" from where we took the ferry across the river and then hiked for several hours in the wooded mountains that string along the river. As it was a weekend day, there were a great many people who had the same idea as us. It was impressive to see this clean and comfortable train stop so often to pick up hikers. I think the train stopped seven times n Dresden alone. Everyone seemed relaxed and there was a lot of conversation going on in the train. The train had big windows good to see from, too. Finishing our hike, we came down to a village, took another ferry across the Elbe, and boarded the train to return to Dresden.

Along the road before we started on the trail, we saw several signs posted in favor of the Neo-Nazi candidates (NPD); they are running in the European parliament election next week under the slogan "teach them a lesson". This part of Saxony is one of the places where the extreme right has enough support to actually have won some seats in the German Congress. The left is stronger though; Der Linke (the Socialist left party) received about 9% of the vote, but over 20% in the East and the Green Party got about 7% in recent countrywide elections, so the left is quite strong in Germany.Der Linke is for economic justice, getting out of Afghanistan, and saving the environment among other things. The Germans are quite conscious about the need to do more to protect the environment.