Right after breakfast at the hotel we set the GPS for Dresden and 2 hours later we arrived at the VW Transparent Factory in Dresden. This is the factory with glass walls and "Canadian maple" floors where they've been building the Phaeton, VW's high end luxury model (see pic) since 2001. We had to wait until 12:00 for the English tour (German
tours were filled up) so we killed some time in the cafe, listening to live piano music. The 90 minute tour was good, but would have been better on a day when the assembly line was operational. Because it was a Sunday, nothing was moving.

From there we drove a short distance to the Altstad, which was obliterated by allied bombers in WW2, but has since been largely rebuilt. We got lucky finding a parking spot and began our Rick Steves' self-guided walking tour. We saw the Semperoper (opera house), the Zwinger palace complex, the DDR built Kulturpalast, the Fuerstenzug (tile
mural) and the Neumarkt, with its big statue of Martin Luther. After some refreshments and warm-up at a cafe (it was only about 17 degrees and a bit
windy) we also toured the inside of the Frauenkirche. This impressive church was rebuilt in 2005, with about a third of the stones reclaimed from the original rubble and the rest new. We finished our walk along the Bruehlische Terrasse overlooking the Elbe river.
Then it was back in the car for another 2 hour drive to our hotel in the centre of Berlin, near the Ku'damm. We checked in around 7:00 and went for dinner at a nearby traditional German restaurant recommended by one of the hotel staff. Evelyn and I had the rouladen. Sherry and Ron had the wienerschnitzel.
After dinner Ron and I drove to the airport to drop off the car, which we no longer needed in Berlin. I'm hoping they don't ding me for the rock chip in the windshield we managed to pick up on the Autobahn. We took a cab back to the hotel and by that time it was 11:00, so we went straight to bed.