July 18th Continued

We are now at the famous Brandenburg Gate. I've include an old photo of how it looked before the wall was taken down and how it looks today.












There is a busy road in front of it on the West side but on the East side is a long paved area for tourist to gather and take pictures.




















There were lots of people dressed for tourist to take pictures with them and Judy fit right in.

July 18th - Berlin, Germany continued

It didn't seem that I could post more than 4 or 5 pictures in one blog so I am making continued blogs. Brad, is there a way to put more on a blog?

Berlin Continued – The area where the wall had been was left vacant for a long time but now it is a nice park and path area with trees, benches, etc. They are trying to bring it back the way it used to look.

July 18th - Berlin, Germany

Berlin, Germany - As you know, Berlin has a very interesting history with the division of East and West Berlin. As we were driving around (lost) trying to get to the Brandenburg Gate, we came upon a unique church so we stopped to take pictures. The doors were open so we went inside. There was an array of posters with old pictures on them with this church in the background. The church sat right on the West Boarder of the wall dividing West and East Germany. These are just a few of the photos that were on display.

The large poster was of the city with the church in the lower left hand corner. Notice where the wall had been just behind the church.



The next two black and white photos were taken as they were taking down the wall.

July 18th - Berlin, Germany

July 18th – We are now in Berlin, Germany. Since it is Sunday, we went to church in a small, quant, LDS chapel which had a very interesting history to it. It was built in 1950 by a wealthy man and then given to the church. It has three floors to it and years later they were told it did not meet the handicap requirement to be a church and that they would need to tear it down. The members did not want that so they earned enough money to put an elevator inside and built a handicap ramp on the outside. The members are very proud of their chapel.

They gave us ear phones to wear so we could understand the speakers. There were about 50 people in attendance and all were very friendly and most could speak very good English. We enjoyed visiting with the members after church.

July 17th - Dresden, Germany

July 17th – We arrived in Dresden, Germany last evening, found a nice hotel and spent the night. We then enjoyed the morning seeing the sights of Dresden.






Dresden was one of Germany's most beautiful city in the 18th century when it acquired many magnificent buildings, however most of these were destroyed during World War II. There is great restoration going on today but there was a nice area to visit where some historic buildings are still standing.





I don't have much information about these buildings but they were interesting to visit. Hopefully, google can shed some light when I get home and can look them up.







The last building is the Zwinger, the most famous monument in Dresden. It was constructed in 1709-32 and is surrounded by a spacious courtyard.











After viewing all these magnificent buildings, we sat down to have something to drink with a new friend we met!

July 17th

July 17th – After visiting Dresden we drove to Freiburg, Germany, about an hour drive south of Dresden.
This was a very pleasant drive to this small town. We enjoyed the countryside.



Here we visited the Freiburg Temple. The temple session had just finished and people were gathered outside visiting. The temple had a beautiful setting and the grounds were very peaceful.

July 16th

July 16th – We are now in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. It is a very large city of over a million people, but it still has the Royal Palace area with a Gothic Cathedral and courtyards for tourist to visit.


While visiting the Prague Royal Palace area, we notice a lot of guards, etc. Prague's current President has an office there and they were ex-cording a car in with someone of importance in it. (Royal Palace in background)