There is a season to build a Fortress, there is a season to build a garden.

I am so far behind in my blog. I have yet to finish my brother's visit, our trip to Meissen two weekends ago, or our trip to Görlitz over the past weekend. So I will back up to my brother.

On the second day of his visit we went to the Festung Dresden, and the Panorama Dresden, 1756.

Like Seattle, Dresden has an underground tour. In Seattle you tour the ground level of the original city of the 1850s. In Dresden you tour a section of what is left of the bastion fortifications built from 1545 to 1555.

Around 1540 the young Duke Moritz had an idea. He admired his city, here shown in a drawing from 1519, but

From Festung Dresden

decided that his home needed better protection from foreign artillery fire.

He was very impressed by the latest in Italian fortifications- ramparts in the shape of arrowheads. So he had them built to protect Dresden. For hundreds of years the walls protected the city, but in the Seven Years War Dresden suffered. Whole suburbs were burned down to the ground, and in the summer of 1760 Prussian artillery started a fire that destroyed much of the center of the city.

From Festung Dresden

After the war it took 60 years before the population fully recovered.

But even before the war the top of the ramparts were being transformed. Count Brühl acquired the riverside fortifications in the 1740's and began to lay out his famous gardens, "Brühl's Terrace". The Terrace was a fabulous place for a party, as shown in this painting of a light show honoring Napoleon and Kaiser Franz II on May 18th, 1813.

From Festung Dresden

Of course there was no partying a few months later when at the Battle of Leipzig fought on 16–19 October, 1813, Napoleon suffered his most decisive defeat. Soon Saxony was placed under Russian-Prussian governorship and in 1815, following the Congress of Vienna, it was required to cede half of its territories to Prussia.

Sometime soon later the fortifications around Dresden were dismantled. The wall along the Elbe was kept as flood protection, and the beautiful gardens above the wall were also preserved. By 1814 the Terrace was opened to the public, and made for a lovely place for an evening stroll.

From Festung Dresden

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Fortunately for us today, Bruhl had the fortifications filled with dirt, thus preserving them. In the 1990's the areas were excavated, and they are now open for a must see trip if you visit or live in Dresden.

On this day I left the house with a dead battery in my camera. So there are no pictures. Following the trip to the Festung we went over to the Panorama Dresden 1756. I can not describe how beautiful and magical this place was. Part history, part art, Dresden of 1756 comes to life before your eyes. Here is a video from Youtube that does not do it justice, but gives you a hint.