Reopening

Sixty years after being destroyed in fire from the Allied bombing of Dresden the Frauenkirche was reconsecrated today. The church sat as a pile of rubble for 47 years before restoration efforts started in January 1993 using original plans from 1720. In a wonderful merger of technology and history computer imaging was used to place 8,000 stones back into their original locations. I was in Dresden in 2003 as the restoration was in full swing. Old and new are juxtaposed like nowhere else. Buildings black with weathering, and bombed out building shells mixed up with fresh, clean stone sometimes in the same building are down the street from the steel and concrete monstrosities built after World War II. Old Dresden is beautiful, a wall of Meissen depicting Anglo-Saxon rulers, the rebuilt opera house, gilded statues on rooftops, and treasures in the museums like nothing I've ever seen.