Nice France - Day 3

Russian Orthodox Cathedral: Opened in 1912, right before WWI, and was given to Nice by Tsar Nicholas II. It is the largest Russian Orthodox Cathedral outside of Russia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orthodox_Cathedral,_Nice)
Our favorite cafe for our morning dose of coffee. The french cafes have all outfacing chairs making for good people watching.

Minarets

Roman ruins:

Hilltop gardens at Paroisse de Cimiez:‎

More gardens:

More gardens:

More gardens:

La paroisse Sainte-Marie des Anges:‎

Back to the Beach for more sun and fun:

Sunset over Nice:

Nice France - Day 2

Our first day included exploring the "Colline du Chateau" (Mountain/Hill right off the beach, with old ruins of the Chateau on top) then down to the beach for the most popular thing to do in Nice - Beach time.

Again the Place Masséna, the salman colored building were real unique. It also had one of our cafes which made for a great spot for people watching. We even saw Micheal Jackson, although his dancing skills didn't seem quite as good as they once were.
More fountains in the central part.

Melissa and Noah:

On our way up to the Le Chateau overlooks:

View from the top:

View with family:

On our way to the port of Nice:

Local fisherman in with a days catch:

Port of Nice:

"Colline du Chateau":

Fountain at Place Masséna.

Beach time finally, Noah in heaven, although the water was really cold.

Nice France - April 4 - Day 1

Nice and the Côte d'Azur:

We all really loved Nice and are already talking about going back in a year or so. Nice offers beautiful beaches, scenery, a flower market, and hiking really close by (we didn’t make it to the Alps this time). Also there are a lot of interesting towns nearby, easy day trips so again we would like to come back.

We did have our plans changed by a Train strike which caused us to stay in Nice more than we were planning - We had to abort our trip to Cannes and nearby a couple near islands at the train station. We couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t buy our tickets from the machines and eventually figured out that the train schedule was disrupted by a strike. So we got to see more of Nice and relax.

Place Masséna - the main square of the city:
Fountain in Place Masséna:
Noah checking out the Bird of Paradise flower. They grow in large bushes and were in bloom.

Down on the Beach at sunset:

Walk on the Promenade des Anglais ("Promenade of the English"):

Nice Nice Sunset:

Another angle, the buildings are Casinos :

Place Masséna at night:

On the way back to our flat:

Our visitors around Dresden

More pictures with our Dresden visitors. Me dancing with the Mozart statues.

Enjoying some of the local bevies on Bruhlsche Terrasse. The Elbe through the window.

Dresden Dynamo game was a blast! We all commented how cool it was that the fan section kept up cheers over the whole game and it didn't take the prompting from blasted in music over the stadium. Led by the main cheer leader, on a podium in the front of the section, they went through all their different chants. I was thinking how do you get that job. BTW Dynamo beat Weder Breman II in close game 1 to 0.

In a show of thanks to the fans the whole Dynamo team walked out on the field held hands and bowed to each of the fan sections. Image a professional team in the US doing that. This experience was a real treat for us all.

I did shoot a few videos of the fans but these didn't capture the true ambiance (i was too busy enjoying it) i will get better video if i go again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTfDpxG-Rsg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XYKhhLAIno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDTVdb4FWIY

Sports at it's purest.

Big Dynamo fans:

Semper Oper

Again the Mozart statue (i don't get in enough pictures).

Walk along the Elbe we were treated to this schone sunset.

We were able to have dinner at our favorite outdoors beer garden (it had just opened on April 1) and enjoyed this sunset over the Elbe.

Noah wanted me to post this picture of Mike's favorite store in Dresden:

Our first visitors! Weekend in Berlin - March 26

Mike and Zach were our first visitors in Dresden and had a great time. David's friend Josh came the next day which made our a apartment full to the brim. They ended up going to Prague, with David guiding the way. We all also went to Berlin and managed to catch a Dynamo (Dresden Soccer game).

Mike relaxing at bar in Neustadt (just on the other side of the Elbe) trying a unfiltered beer, a specialty for local breweries as the shelf life for a unfiltered beer is very short and they only offer it near the brewery. We also were able to sample some Radeberger unfiltered which is only served at the brewery and on the Bruhlsche Terrasse.
Noah and Zach spending time on the train to Berlin.

Berlin Museum island - Alte Nationalgalerie.

Mom and Noah in front of the Berlin Cathedral:

Inside the Pergamon Museum. The Pergamon is unusual in that they moved very large monuments from Turkey and reassembled them in this musuem. It is a musuem that includes some very large rebuilt monuments that are housed inside. Taking a break on the Pergamon Altar.

Aong the river the BodeMuseum with TV tower at Alexanderplatz in the background. We have become accustomed to a lot of walking and our guests got a flavor of this.

You got to love this interesting sign on the river:

Interesting railing:

Investigating a "Brick of the wall" along our walk:

Reichstag at dusk, still haven't made it in, but the closest yet (we got up to the door before we left the line this time):

Group crossing the river near the Reichstag:

Noah and Zach share an "over the wall" greeting. The bricks on the street mark where the wall once stood. The Brandenburg gate, in background, stood in a netural area walled in on both sides.

Sony center atrium top near the Berlin Potsdamer Platz.

The wall segment near the Topography of Terror:

Enjoying a break over some brats, and currywurst. Zach and Mike just loved the brats from the local stands. I think Zacks personal best was 5 brats in a day). In the background you can see the Trabant car a real cheap car that fueled the DDR.

On to the next thing: