Saxon Switzerland

Yesterday I went to Saxon Switzerland with one of my classmates. We took the train to Kurort Rathen, arriving late in the morning. It was slightly foggy, but still beautiful. The weather was relatively mild and the trees were changing their colors from green to yellow and orange. We took a ferry across the Elbe River, then found a trail up and through the forest to the Bastei Bridge. Since it was a Sunday there were lots of other people out; we even crossed paths several times with three other Americans who live in my dorm. From vista points high up along the trail there were beautiful views of the river and the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. We saw some people climbing as well. The bridge itself was not as large as expected, but it was surrounded by unique peaks. We lingered at the top of the trail, enjoying the views, then descended and found another trail to a small man-made lake called the Amselsee. We stopped and had some sandwiches on a bench there, watching fish swimming in the lake. Despite my classmate's protests, I insisted we continue on to Amselfall, which I hoped, based on the name, was a waterfall. We asked a family heading in the same direction about it and they confirmed that indeed it was a waterfall, but warned us it was very small! It was another nice walk, along a small creek this time, to get there. At the waterfall, there was a cafe and a small nature center that we checked out. As we returned to the river, the sun finally broke through the clouds. We took the ferry back across the river, then I had some tea while we were waiting for the train back to Dresden. We made it home by early evening. It was one of my favorite days in Germany so far. If we have another weekend with nice weather it would be a nice place to return to - there are many more areas of Saxon Switzerland to see and it's free to get there by train with our student ids.