Last year as well as visiting Berlin, I decided to spend time in two other nearby cities, both with a long and sometimes turbulent history. It was a dramatic enough time while I was there as heavy rain in the south of Germany sent a serious amount of water down to Dresden via the River Elbe. The threat of the river bursting its banks was very real and indeed it did cause havoc in the outer suburbs but the city centre stayed dry due to the trojan efforts of countless sandbagging volunteers. Dresden is the capital city of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. Dresden has a long history as the capital and royal residence for the Electors and Kings of Saxony, who for centuries furnished the city with cultural and artistic splendour. The controversial British and American bombing of Dresden in World War II towards the end of the war killed approximately 25,000 people, many of whom were civilians and destroyed the entire city centre. The bombing gutted the city, as it did for other major German cities. After the war restoration work has helped to reconstruct parts of the historic inner city, including the Katholische Hofkirche, the Semper Oper and the Dresdner Frauenkirche as well as the suburbs.

Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a city in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Situated on the river Elbe, it has a population of about 50,000.The importance of Wittenberg historically was due to its seat of the Elector of Saxony, a position held by the dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg and also to its close connection with Martin Luther and the dawn of the Protestant Reformation; several of its buildings are associated with the events of this time. Part of the Augustinian monastery in which Luther dwelt, first as a monk and later as owner with his wife and family, is preserved and considered to be the world's premier museum dedicated to Luther.