A Scenic Meltdown

What Should You Wear to Explore the Elbe Sandstone Mountains?

A) Hiking boots, a map, and good intentions
B) A chic all-black woollen outfit, chosen for max combo of style and gravitas
C) A strappy tangerine orange nightgown and the last of your dignity

Spoiler: If you think I picked A, you must be new around here.

It seemed straightforward enough: from Dresden, there is a train to Kurort Rathen, then a ferry across the Elbe and suddenly you are in Saxon Switzerland. Which is not in Switzerland. But never mind that.

Dresden was in the grip of a heatwave. I might have welcomed the heat, 37.4°C / 99°F, on the Costa del Sol, wearing nothing more than a bikini and a bottle of Cruzcampo. Not in head-to-toe black wool, carefully chosen for conference chic and an average August of 20°C.

This wasn’t summer weather. This was betrayal.

My beautiful “I am a serious academic” outfits felt like they were trying to strangle me in a sauna.

That’s why instead of being a city tourist, I ended up in Primark searching for something that I wouldn’t melt in. I had packed a cute pair of orange ballet flats to contrast with all that black. With them in mind, I picked up a lightweight tangerine orange summer dress. It was satiny and strappy and very very orange, but with a light blouse to tie over it, I thought it would be perfect for the heat. Sweating profusely, I counted down the minutes until I could change into my new summer outfit …until the cashier lifted the dress up and said “Oooh, I love this nightgown” as she folded it into my bag.

“Yes, me too,” I mumbled, as if of course it’s a nightgown, what else could it be?

Once back in my room, I pretended that the cashier never existed and I put on the nightgown and the blouse and my cute orange shoes and made my way to the train station, wanting nothing more than to get out of the heat of the city. I was pretty sure no one could tell it was a nightgown with the blouse over it, but I put on a pair of dark sunglasses, just in case it would give me a bit of a “drugged out sleepwalking cult icon” vibe.

My plan, which was about as well formed as my shopping expedition, was to head to Kurort Rathen for an hour and see if it was worth returning at the end of the conference, spending my only free day exploring Saxon Switzerland. There were two versions of the train ticket to Kurort Rathen with no clear information as to the difference. I purchased the cheaper one and promised myself: if the train conductor decides that my ticket is wrong,  I will decide that I no longer speak German and we will see who gives up first for the sake of two euros and fifteen cents.

We arrived at Kurort Rathen without any conductor incidents and half the train disembarked. I followed the crowd out of the station and around a windy small street. A restaurant chalk board promised cold cucumber soup which sounded absolutely perfect but I also had no idea where I was going, so I kept following the other tourists, intent on working out a plan for the end of the week.

I didn’t know it was going to be my last chance at appropriate summer food.

It was already 3pm. If I waited just a little longer to eat, I could have a late lunch and skip dinner and quietly collapse in my hotel room into a molten heap of sweat and nightgown.

By the time we reached the banks of the Elbe, we were a few dozen people strong and a paddle steamer was crossing the river, coming for us. A sign proclaimed that the ferry was cash only.

I dug around the bottom of my handbag fishing out coins, eventually finding just enough coppers to pay for the 1.50€ ticket but not for the three-euro round trip, not unless he had change for a twenty, which, this was Germany, of course he wouldn’t, he would shake his head in disappointment and tell me that I should have come better prepared and yes, it is possible that I project my grandmother onto every German stranger that I have to interact with.

I left dealing with the sad ferryman as a problem for future-Sylvia and handed over the one-way fare. He gave me an odd look, as I didn’t seem like the sort to be staying over but he let me board the paddle steamer and five minutes later, we were on the other side.

We were greeted by a cluster of restaurants offering river views and traditional Saxon dishes. Their menus all show exactly the same food: Schnitzel and pork knuckle and grilled sausages and fried grease with a side of fried potatoes. All much too heavy and much too hot for  the sudden summer apocalypse.

I thought longingly of the cold cucumber soup that I had missed and carried on walking until I found the start of the Bastei Bridge Trail. There it was, a stairway up into the forest.

Technically, I had fulfilled my quest. I had seen enough to know that I’d quite like to get up early and spend a day here; in cooler weather, wearing something more functional than a tangerine orange nightgown and ballet flats.

I had a few options now: continue to explore the town, choose a restaurant and treat myself to a meal of hot fried grease with a side of fried potatoes, walk along the river bank in hopes of a cool breeze, or just get the next steamer back, holding steady against the disappointment of the ferryman, and head back to Dresden.

Besides, it seemed silly to have come all this way and just… turn back. The trail was right here, or at least the stairway to it was and I was pretty sure I could see a friendly paved path in the distance which looked manageable despite my inappropriate footwear.

Shouldn’t I at least look?

I climbed the steps and started on the path, which had deceitfully shifted from “friendly and flat” to “spiteful and steep”. The pines did not offer cooling shade, as I’d hoped, but simply cut off the remnants of the mild breeze in an attempt to suffocate us in pure heat.

As the sinister pines gave way to sandstone rock, I untied my blouse and then took it off completely, tying it around my waist, revealing the satin spaghetti strings of my hiking outfit.

Everyone else was locked in their own battle, no one cared what I was wearing.

 I don’t really know why I kept going in my ballet flats and flimsy nightgown, other than that every time I paused for breath, I thought, well, it’s silly to turn back now, isn’t it? After all this way, when there’s sure to be a rest spot soon. Besides, there were tiny humans trekking up the trail with their gore-tex-clad parents and if they could do it, then so could I.

Luckily, Saxon Switzerland chose that moment to reward me with a viewpoint. Far below me the ferry, my beloved ferry, crossed the River Elbe full of people returning to the flatter shore. I checked my phone and was reassured to see that the paddle steamer ran until late into the night. It would be waiting for me, assuming I made it down before midnight and somehow managed to get the correct change.

I wasn’t sure anymore which seemed more unlikely.

I sat down on a friendly tree root shaped a bit like a bench and watched the parents cajole their toddlers to keep going, just a bit more. And then I kept climbing.

The air felt like soup, sticky and suffocating, like someone had intentionally increased the resistance. My legs twinged, promising hell to pay tomorrow. My blouse was gone, lost, somewhere on the winding path below. And yet, somehow, I kept walking.

I had hit some sort of point of no return. If I stopped now, I wouldn’t come back to this treacherous path. No. It was now or never if I wanted to see the bridge at the top. I didn’t know why I wanted to see the bridge; I had not done any research and was only vaguely aware that it existed. But if everyone else wanted to see it, well then, so did I. I echoed the cajoling parents passing me, promising myself that I could have an ice cream back at the dock if I just made it to the top without whining.

Sweat trickled down my torso, leaving salt stains on my new nightgown. I  kept going.

Concrete stairs carved through moss-covered sandstone. I pulled myself up holding the metal railings. This, I decided, was my last and final stand. I would stop at the top of these stairs, rest, and then make my slow way back down to the riverside.

As if the trail had heard my ultimatum, the stairs emptied me onto a ledge of high ground. Now, finally, I understood why everyone had made the climb.

An arched bridge of sandstone bricks stretched between jagged towers of rock, crossing an impossibly deep gorge. I stumbled dizzily over the narrow walkway. On the far side, the ruins of a stone castle clung to the sandstone.

This bridge shouldn’t have existed, not even once, but a sign told me that it was originally a flimsy wooden thing which deliberately collapsed multiple times under the feet of attackers. In 1851, it was replaced with this sandstone version, which must have been some relief to the parents whose sulky children were now gleefully running back and forth across it.

If civilization were ending and the world was overrun by zombies, this, exactly this place right here, was where I would run to, I decided.

I took a selfie of myself, complete with tangerine orange nightgown and sunburnt nose. I continued across the bridge and beyond, lured on by blessed flatness and a hint of a breeze. Miraculously, there on the other side was a restaurant. Large signs advertised sausages, which no longer sounded the least bit heavy or greasy, and cold, crisp beer. I stood in line for fifteen minutes, handed over my twenty euros in exchange for half a liter of beer mixed with lemonade and collapsed into a plastic chair in the shade of a chestnut tree.

Now all I had to do was count out my change and make it to the ferry before midnight.

The long line of people buying beer was almost gone by the time I gathered the strength to leave my shade-covered table, steeling myself up for the long way back. Exiting the back way, I stopped again to stare. I was on a road. A small truck drove up with a delivery for the restaurant. A truck!

Taking a few steadying breaths, in case I was hallucinating, I walked onto the pavement to look for a sign to see where the road led to. There was something much more miraculous in the distance: a bus stop.

Twenty minutes later, a bus pulled up and fifty people looking alert and enthusiastic and not the least bit sweaty filed off of the bus and headed towards the bridge. They were not quite off the bus before I was stepping on. I did not know where the bus was going but I was taking no chances that it might go without me.

The bus driver looked my nightgown up and down before accepting my exact change for the bus fare. I smiled my best drugged-out cult-icon smile and collapsed into a seat.

As we swung around the bend, the Elbe came back into view, dark and wide beneath the deepening sky. I pressed my forehead to the bus window, the glass cool against my sunburnt skin, and watched the rock formations receding behind me like something conquered. The bus crossed the river at a bridge, no need for a ferry at all.

I still had to work out where the bus was going. Still had to find a train to Dresden, walk to my hotel in these ridiculous shoes, pretend that the nightgown wasn’t still happening in public.

But for now, I had my seat. I had air conditioning. And I had, inexplicably, been to the top.