A Day in Prague and back to Germany

7 July
We are currently staying in a four hunderd year old castle in Hurlach, which is pretty close to Munich in Germany. It's actually a YWAM base, and was purchased in 1972 as an outreach centre for the Munich Olympic Games. At the moment it's empty, as all the students and staff are either away on their sumer break, or off on outreach.
We spent quite a while visiting a huge complex of stately buildings in Dresden called the "Staatliche Kunstsaamlungen" - basically an extravagant way of some ruler to show off! I really wanted to see the Frauen Kirche, which I'd heard was like a huge wedding cake inside, but unfortunately a wedding was in progress, so we couldn't see inside. There were heaps of people visiting the area, so I came across the usual buskers - this time, a couple of statues, a group of clarinetists and a mime artist, who was actually very good, and attracted a large crowd.
That night, and the following one as well, we stayed at a guesthouse run by the Moravian Church at Herrnhut. It was beautifully set up, and even had a lovely garden behind it, complete with oversized outdoor chess game, and a grassed vollyball court - the latter which we put to use until the ball punctured!
On Sunday, we went to the church service at the Moravian Church, and Gordon and I didn't understand a word, as it was all in German, but it was fun singing the hymns in German. During the sermon, which was about 40 minutes long, I read about the history of the Moravians, and a man called Count Zinzendorf, who greatly assisted them. Afterwards, we stayed for a cup of coffee and then had a look through the museum above the church. They also had some second hand books for sale, and I ended up buying a recipe book called "Miracle Soups", and another about St Paul's Church in London, which was great, as that was the church we had visited, but had been unable to photograph, since there had been a service in progress.
After lunch, I enjoyed a walk through the neighbouring town of Berthelsdorf, photographing all the cute houses, then back along the road through the picturesque countryside to Herrnhut. It really is a very pretty area, so I was very pleased we got to stay there for two days.
On Monday morning, we left for Prague, and on the way stopped off at an amazing place (called Kalice) in the hills where the followers of John Hus visited amongst the rocks in secret. Being in the town square of Prague (which we generously shared with hundreds of tourists from all over the world!) was an amazing experience. Some of us ended up going to a string quartet which gave a fantastic concert of popular classical music in one of Prague's many churches. That night we stayed at a guesthouse run by some lovely Czech Christians. By the way, we just happened to be in Prague on the anniversary of John Hus being burned at the stake, and because this man is so reverred in the Czech Republic, it was a public holiday.
Today we spent a lot of time travelling back to Germany, where we spent a sobering hour and a half looking around the concentration camp at Dachau. What struck me was that both victims and perpetrators of cruelty alike were dehumanised in totally different ways. Somehow it was appropriate that the weather was cold and wet.