Does anyone recognize this European city?

Platy

I was wondering whether you guys could help me identify a city. This drawing belonged to my deceased grandfather and the city it shows is most likely located in Central or Eastern Europe.

Click for picture

There's also text at the right bottom, but so far I've been unable to read it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Aldo

Text looks more like the artist's signature.

I don't think you're looking at a real city, the two big buildings are very close to each other and then there's that steamboat that wouldn't even fit under the bridge. It looks like the artist never actually sat down on the riverside and drew that, but instead drew it either from memory or was simply inspired by buildings he had seen once.

I must say that - of the cities I have visited - it reminds me of Prague, because of the way the old city is located next to the river and there's this famous bridge with statues on it as well.

wonderpug

I thought I was onto something with some pictures of the Old Stone Bridge in Regensburg, Bavaria/Germany, but the church spire looks different:



Good luck to you! Can't wait to find the answer.

Echo

Yeah, that could be so many cities. My first thought was Stockholm. (totally not biased here.)

SanderJK

The high boulevard is kind of distinctive, and the way the church next to it is a tier down should be a very recognisable thing. and the foreground looks almost like a gravel beach. I tried to take a stab at deciphering the text, which I don't think is an autograph, there appears to be spacing between the letters, and the words are cursive. Even the language it's in would of course be incredibly handy. But I'm not getting anywhere really, except a guess that the the second word is 'fall.'

Vienna, Prague, and Budapest are the three big middle-european cities known for big rivers/bridges.

Platy

My mother identified the city by googling "Raddampfer", the German word for paddle steamer.

It's Dresden.

Here are some more pictures: #1, #2, #3.

Thanks to everyone for their help.