Dresden...evolving!
There are few places in central Europe that pleasantly surprise visitors as much as Dresden does, capital of Saxony and third largest city in former East Germany at half a million inhabitants. More than 2 decades since the Fall of Communism, Dresden has become an East German success story in urban renewal, innovation and economic growth. Recent history, however, has not always been kind to the Saxon capital, with almost the entire historic inner city devastated by the infamous air raids of February 13th, 1945, and more recently, the reconstructed downtown almost entirely flooded by the "millenium floods" of the Elbe river in August, 2002. Since then, however, the city has defied all adversity and successfully reinvented itself, charmingly restored its historic core and become among the highlights of any visit to Eastern Germany and all of Central Europe. Surprisingly underrated and underpublicized as an international tourist destination, Dresden attracts but a moderate m...