I hadn’t been to Dresden for a couple of years, so it was definitely time for another visit. My first visits to the city had been back in the days when Germany was divided. While I lived in the West, my grandparents as well as an aunt of mine with her family lived in one of the most remote corners of East Germany. That area was dubbed Valley of the Clueless because it was impossible for them to watch West German TV which people in most parts of the country were able to receive. It was on one visit with my family, that I saw the Fürstenzug (which is the German name for this mural) for the first time.

This mural, showing a procession of former Saxon rulers, had survived the bombing and subsequent fires blazing through and destroying most of Dresden’s centre, the Altstadt. Only some 200 of a total of 23,000 tiles had been destroyed – proving that Meissen porcelain is indeed quite heat-resistant. In the background, parts of Dresden Castle and Dresden Cathedral can be seen, both of which had been badly damaged in the Second World War. The restoration of the Cathedral was completed in 1965, that of the castle was mostly completed in 2010, with the last parts only completed half a year before this photo was taken – almost 70 years after the war.

This photograph was made with a Canon EOS 6D and an EF 35mm f/2 IS USM lens. The exposure was 2.5 seconds at f/8 and ISO 200. The photograph was edited in Adobe Lightroom. You can find this photo along with others from my trip in my album Dresden.