We headed towards Berlin, a city that Audrey fell in love with when she was just a little girl, but first we had to go via Ostritz.  Why the blazers Ostritz?  Well I'll tell you.  Way back in the day, around the mid 1850's this area was occuppied by second and third generations of people originally from the Netherlands.  The area was swampy, which obviously people from the Netherlands love, and it took a while to clear the land, till the fields, get crops growing and build a community.  In a far off distance place, halfway around the world, there was another opportunity beckoning to settle some new lands and these people, knowing that in about 60-70 years and again in another 20 after that that there was going to be a massive fight here, took up the challenge.  One of them was a bloke with the last name Roocke, my Great, Great Grandpa Johann Friedrich Gottfried Roocke.  Now I never got to meet him but if I did I would thank him for making the courageous decision to cross the great seas and chose South Australia to start his new life, which eventually lead to Mwa.  The town is nothing special, some older style buildings, some churches and a town square that is in a rather decrepid state.  It is right on the border with Poland and only 5 km's north of Czech so I would suggest that this little town has gone back and forth between rival countries over the last few centuries.  At the moment it's part of German but back when my forefathers pulled up stumps and left, it was part of the Prussian Empire.  We didn't stay long, it was Saturday and place was deserted so there was no one around to ask about the history so we left after about an hour.
Dresden is the largest city in South-Eastern Germany with a big recent history of Auto-manufacturing.  The Elbe river splits the city down the guts, it has a large flood plain which gets used by the locals to sun themselves throughout summer and only a small river bank before the ground gradually rises to form a true valley.  Several older buildings are built along both banks, the majority on the left side, but a lot were also destroyed during WWII.  Therefore you have this mismatch of new and old buildings that meld together quite well.  There is a real defined City centre here also so its good to go for a walk inside and see and do all you want.  We only had 1 day here and it did go quick so we only got to see the prime museum, the 'New Green Vault".  This place contains the largest collection of treasures in the world.  Founded by a dude called Augustus the Strong in 1723, it opened to the public not long after which makes it one of the oldest Museums in the world.  Obviously damaged in WWII, many of the pieces were destroyed or looted in the aftermath, they say that not even half of the originals are back.  And the ones that they have, especially the diamond collection, were fantastic, I would struggle to comprehend seeing all the collections before 1939, and the money needed to purchase it all.  Hard to judge Dresden in one day, so I wont.
Next day, we drove down river to a place called Meissen.  Meissen is world renowned for it's impressive Porcelain ... and super duper expessive Porcelain (one 30cm * 30cm piece cost Euro45,000, about A$45,000).  Audrey and I parked the car and went for a little jaunt around this nice town and then ended up at the Porcelain Museum where we went through a demonstration.  After that you can understand why porcelain made here is expessive as it's still all hand made by professional's, but come on, a little tile that costs more than a brand new Audi A4, get some sense.  Anyway, 3 tiles later ...
Later, on the way to Berlin, doing a respectable 130 km's and still being passed like I was standing still (gotta love the Autobahn) we came upon some traffic about 25 km's from Berlin.  As we crept along slowly, we saw some smoke start to rise just ahead of us ... and also some rubber on the road.  Some poor bastard had just blown a tyre on his truck and before he could pull up, it caught on fire.  As we passed him he came falling out of his cabin with everything he could grab as the passengers side started to really get a light.  I feel really sorry for him as there was absolutely nothing I or anyone else could do for him but drive by and leave space for the firefighters that would eventually arrive.  It is such a hot period and this happening right next to the forest, luckily I haven't heard anything about of huge forest fire just south of here so the firefighters must have got there in time.