Rathen

Today we took the the train to a small town in the Sachsische Schweiz.(Saxon, Switzerland).  Don't worry, we did not leave Germany.  This is a forest area very like some places in Switzerland. The town is called Rathen, (pronounced rotten).  It is located in a national park.  It consists of a couple of streets of businesses and homes.  It is a located at the base of the Bastei.  The train ride was 40 minutes and then we had to cross the Elbe River on a ferry.  As we walked around the quaint town cobblestone streets, we stumbled on to a path that led up to the Bastei.  This is a large area with rock formations similar to those in Bryce National Park, Utah only they are gray instead of pink.  We started hiking up the trail along a river, then turned up between high narrow rock canyons.  The trail then turned into steps, approximately 800-1000 of them to the top.  The country is beautiful.  The views spectacular.  We completed the hike going down the other side of the Bastei.  It would have been a much easier hike if we had come up that way instead of the many stairs but we would have missed so much of the experience of hiking in the steep canyon of rock. 

We decided to take the cruise boat back to Dresden.  It cruised up the Elbe River through county that looks a lot like Saxony.  It took longer, about 3 hours, but was very beautiful.  The ship was full and we had to stand up the 1st hour, but then were able to get seats the rest of the way.  It was relaxing and warm. 

When we arrived back in Dresden, it was dinner time.  We went to an Australian Restaurant.  We ordered something to drink and then started looking at the menu.  It was hard for us to find something that we would eat.  The menu had crocodile steaks, kangaroo steaks, ostrich steaks...   I was not interested in trying any of those things,  I finally found a chicken dish that sounded good(it was), and ordered that.  Dan found the 1 beef dish on the menu and ordered it.  He also enjoyed his meal. 

It was a long, fun day.  We would love to go back to Rathen someday and hike some more. 

Our last day in Dreesden was spent relaxing in the morning and then meeting with Elder Angerhofer, and Elder Riesen.  Elder Angerhofer was in Berlin with us for 4 months before being transfered to Dresden.  We took them to lunch and caught up on how he was doing.  It was great to see him again.  We then boarded the ICE train and sped back to Berlin to get ready to go to Hambug the next day.