5 Days in Dresden

Start at the Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady. The city's Lutheran citizens built it between 1726 and 1743 under a stone dome, the Steinerne Glocke or "Stone Bell", that lifts the whole building to about 91 m, and for two centuries it defined the skyline in the paintings of Bernardo Bellotto, known in Germany as Canaletto.

In February 1945 it stood through the night of the firestorm, then the overheated pillars gave way and the dome fell at around 10 on the morning of 15 February. East Germany left the ruin as an anti-war memorial. After 1990 an appeal went out to rebuild it, and the work ran from 1994 to 2005, paid for with donations from all over the world plus public money. The golden cross on top was made in Britain by a silversmith, Alan Smith, whose father had been one of the bomber pilots in the raid. The darker stones in the pale new sandstone of the outer walls are originals pulled from the rubble.

Go inside, which is free, then climb the dome. The way up is stairs and a long ramp, and the platform at 67 m gives the best view of the old town and the Elbe.

The square around the church, the Neumarkt, is being rebuilt quarter by quarter with houses that copy the baroque originals. Supporters say the city got its heart back; critics call it inauthentic. Walk through and decide for yourself, and look at the sandstone, which turns black naturally with age and isn't soot.

Then walk five minutes to the Fürstenzug, the Procession of Princes. It's a 102 m mural on the wall of the Stallhof, showing 35 rulers of the House of Wettin on horseback, starting with the margrave of 1127. It was first made in sgraffito (scratched plaster) in 1873-76, and then recreated on about 23,000 Meissen porcelain tiles in 1904-07 so it would last. That worked: it came through the bombing largely undamaged. Look for the farmers, craftsmen and scientists who walk behind the rulers at the end.

Lunch is Saxon, and the setting is good. The Radeberger Spezialausschank sits in the old bridge master's house at the foot of the Brühlsche Terrasse, right where the paddle steamers dock. It opens at noon and serves the classic dishes of the region: Sächsischer Sauerbraten (beef marinated for days in vinegar and spices, with a thick gravy and dumplings), Saxon potato soup and, for dessert, Dresdner Eierschecke.

Order a Radeberger Zwickel alongside, the unfiltered, cloudy version of the Pilsner. If you'd rather sit near the Frauenkirche, the Freiberger Schankhaus at Neumarkt 8 does Saxon food from noon.

Climb up to the Brühlsche Terrasse, the "Balcony of Europe". It was laid out in 1739-48 as the private garden of Count Brühl, a minister of Augustus III, and opened to the public in 1814. It's a long promenade high above the river, with the Albertinum, the Academy of Fine Arts and the Kunsthalle on the other side. The Albertinum is the museum for art from Caspar David Friedrich's Romantic landscapes to Gerhard Richter. It's open Tuesday to Sunday 11-17 and closed on Mondays.

Walk to the eastern end, where the Carola Bridge used to cross the river. Part of it collapsed on 11 September 2024 and the rest was demolished by September 2025. A design for a replacement was chosen in September 2026, but building hasn't started. Nearby is the New Synagogue, built in 2001 on the site of Gottfried Semper's synagogue, which the Nazis destroyed in 1938.

The Residenzschloss was the seat of the Saxon electors and kings, and today it's a museum complex. Its star is the Green Vault, a collection Augustus the Strong set up in 1723-29 that counts as one of the oldest museums in the world. The Historic Green Vault is the baroque treasure rooms restored as they looked in 1733, with ivory, amber, silver and gemstone vessels on mirrored walls so they glitter in every direction. The New Green Vault shows individual masterpieces in plain rooms.

In November 2019 thieves broke in and stole three sets of royal jewelry. Five men were convicted in 2023 and some of the pieces have been recovered, which is why security is tight and bags go in lockers.

The rest of the palace is worth a look: the Armoury has ceremonial weapons and a Turkish Chamber, and the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings shows works by Dürer and Rembrandt.

Cross the Augustus Bridge to the Neustadt side and walk a few minutes along the river. This stretch of embankment is the Canaletto View, named after the painter who made the skyline famous in the middle of the 18th century. Turn around and the old town is lined up in front of you: the Hofkirche tower, the Frauenkirche dome, the castle tower and the glass dome of the art academy that locals call the Zitronenpresse, the lemon squeezer.

Stay until the lights come on, then have dinner on this side of the river. Hauptstraße, five minutes north, has plenty of choices, or you can walk back across the bridge to the Altstadt.

The Zwinger was begun in 1709 by Augustus the Strong, designed by Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann as an orangery and a stage for court festivals. It's one of the most important baroque buildings in Germany, a courtyard of pavilions and galleries crowded with sculpted figures. Gottfried Semper closed the open side toward the Elbe with a gallery in 1855. The 1945 raids hit it hard, and it was rebuilt in the 1950s and 60s.

The Zwinger houses the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, the Old Masters Picture Gallery, and its centerpiece is Raphael's Sistine Madonna, bought by Augustus's son, with the two cherubs at the bottom that are on a thousand postcards. There's also Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, a strong room of Dutch and Flemish painters and work by Cranach.

Walk across Theaterplatz to the Hofkirche, the Catholic Court Church, built in 1738-51 for Augustus III. The city was Lutheran and had just spent years building the Frauenkirche, but its rulers had converted to Catholicism to take the Polish crown, so they built their own church next to the palace and connected it by a raised passage.

Go in (it's free in the daytime). The organ is the last work of Gottfried Silbermann and the pulpit is by Balthasar Permoser. Below are the Wettin crypts, where the heart of Augustus the Strong is kept. His body lies in Kraków.

Time for Dresden's cake. Eierschecke has three layers: a thin base, a thick middle of quark (fresh cheese) and vanilla pudding, and a top of egg-yolk cream. The Dresdner Kaffeestübchen, a tiny café in the Salzgasse behind the Frauenkirche, is known for its slice. It's small, so go early in the afternoon and expect to wait.

If it's full, the Radeberger Spezialausschank also serves it. And if you spot Quarkkeulchen, flat fried quark and potato fritters with apple sauce, order them. The food section has more to look for.

The Altmarkt is the oldest square in Dresden and home of the Striezelmarkt, the Christmas market that has run since 1434. The Kreuzkirche, home of the Kreuzchor boys' choir and rebuilt after the war, stands on one side, and the Kulturpalast, a GDR concert hall of 1969 that reopened in 2017 with a new concert hall and the city library, on the north.

Look down at the paving. An inscription set into the stones records that from 25 February 1945 the bodies of 6,865 people were burned on this square, on improvised grates, because the authorities feared epidemics.

This is the place to get the history straight. British bombers hit Dresden in two waves on the night of 13 February 1945, and American bombers followed on the 14th and 15th. The city was a rail junction full of refugees, with factories working for the war. A commission of historians appointed by the city council reported in 2010 that between 22,700 and 25,000 people died. Far higher figures trace back to a forged copy of an official report with a zero added to every number, spread by Nazi propaganda in March 1945 and repeated for decades, including by the later Holocaust denier David Irving. Far-right groups still use them. The commission also found no evidence for the story that fighters machine-gunned refugees on the Elbe meadows.

For the view from inside, read Victor Klemperer's diaries, written in Dresden from 1933 to 1945 by a professor persecuted as a Jew.

Take a tram or walk 20 minutes west to Yenidze, a former cigarette factory built in 1907-09 in the shape of a mosque, with a stained-glass dome and a chimney disguised as a minaret. It isn't a mosque and never was. The owner, Hugo Zietz, wanted a building that would advertise his "oriental" tobacco, and he got one. Wartime bombing damaged it badly and destroyed almost a third of the factory, but it was repaired afterward.

Today it holds offices, event space and a restaurant under the dome. Even if you don't go in, the walk past is worth it for the contrast with the baroque city.

The Semperoper is the opera house of the Saxon State Opera and home of the Staatskapelle Dresden, an orchestra founded in 1548. Gottfried Semper's first theater opened in 1841 and burned down in 1869, and the second, built by his son Manfred to Semper's plans, opened in 1878. The 1945 raids destroyed it again, and it reopened in 1985. Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss both premiered major works here.

The best way to see it is to go to a performance, even a ballet or a concert. Most people dress smart-casual. Seats with a restricted view are cheaper, and for sold-out evenings ask at the box office about returns and last-minute tickets. If you can't get a seat, the daytime tour (offered nearly every day, in German and English) takes you through the foyers and the auditorium.

At the end of the bridge, the Golden Rider, the Goldener Reiter, shows Augustus the Strong on horseback in Roman dress, riding toward his Polish kingdom. It was made of beaten copper and gilded in 1736. From there, Hauptstraße runs north as a tree-lined pedestrian boulevard, and the lanes around Königstraße form the baroque quarter, the Barockviertel, with rebuilt courtyards and small antique shops, especially on Heinrichstraße.

The writer Erich Kästner, author of Emil and the Detectives, grew up in the Neustadt, and a small museum on Antonstraße is dedicated to him.

Walk up Hauptstraße to the Dreikönigskirche, the Church of the Three Kings. Pöppelmann was one of the architects of the church, which went up in 1732-39, and the tower was added in 1854-57. The bombing of 1945 destroyed it, and it wasn't rebuilt until the late 1980s. From 1990 to 1993 it served as the seat of the Saxon state parliament.

The tower is the reason to come. It is 87.5 m high and you climb 254 steps, with no lift. The view over the Elbe and the old town is nearly as good as from the Frauenkirche, and the ticket costs less than half.

A 15-minute walk east, in the Äußere Neustadt, the Kunsthofpassage is a chain of five courtyards between Görlitzer Straße and Alaunstraße, finished in 2001. Each yard has its own art theme. The Hof der Elemente has a blue facade of drainpipes that make music when it rains, and the Hof der Tiere has a giant giraffe with a herd of monkeys leaping over its head from window to window.

It's a good example of what the Neustadt is like: small shops, galleries and cafés in backyards that used to be workshops. Go before lunch, when it's quiet.

Pfunds Molkerei, the Pfund Brothers' Dairy, was founded in 1880 and is in the Guinness Book of Records as the most beautiful dairy shop in the world. About 248 square meters of hand-painted Villeroy & Boch tiles cover the walls, the floor and the counter with fables, flowers and scenes from dairy farming. It still sells cheese, milk and Saxon specialties.

There's a small bistro too. Order a glass of buttermilk, a cheese plate or a plain slice of bread with cheese, and look up while you eat.

Spend the afternoon on foot in the Äußere Neustadt, the part of Dresden that locals mean when they say "Neustadt". Alaunstraße, Louisenstraße and Görlitzer Straße are packed with record shops, secondhand bookstores, cafés, bars and corner shops that sell cold beer to take out. The district is where students, artists and old-school Dresdners mix, and in June it hosts the Bunte Republik Neustadt street festival, which takes over the whole quarter.

Walk with no plan and pop into courtyards that look like private property but aren't. It also has a rougher edge than the center.

Walk back to Hauptstraße 1 for dinner at Watzke am Goldenen Reiter, the city center outpost of the Watzke brewery in Pieschen, which brings fresh barrels to the Altstadt almost every day. The Watzke Pils is bitter, the Altpieschner Spezial is a little sweet with caramel, and there's a cloudy Dresden Stadtbier.

The food is classic Saxon cooking. Inside hangs the Johannes bell, the first cast of a bell made for the Frauenkirche, and it rings on every full hour. Book a table on Friday and Saturday evenings.

End the night with live music in the Äußere Neustadt. The Blue Note on Görlitzer Straße is a bar with a concert almost every night, from jazz and blues to folk-rock. A short walk away, the Scheune on Alaunstraße is a cultural center with a program of concerts, stand-up and readings.

You don't need a plan. Look at the program on their sites, or walk along Louisenstraße and see which bar has a line.

Take the S1 to Kurort Rathen. The station is on the far side of the river, so you cross on the little Rathen ferry, a historic chain ferry that is a protected monument, and walk through the traffic-calmed village. Then follow the signs to the Bastei. The path climbs about 190 m on stone steps through the forest, past lookouts such as the Tiedge viewpoint and the Kanapee.

It's steep in places, so wear shoes with grip. Allow about an hour for the climb with photo stops.

The Bastei is the best known rock formation in Saxon Switzerland, a cluster of sandstone towers about 190 m above the Elbe. A 76.5 m bridge, built in 1851, links the rocks and gives the classic view of the river bend and the flat-topped hills on the far side, including the Lilienstein and the Königstein. Robber knights once used the rocks, and the Romantic painters made them famous.

Walk out onto the bridge, then take the side paths to the Ferdinand viewpoint and the main Bastei lookout. The remains of the Neurathen rock castle are next to the bridge.

Walk back down into Rathen for lunch. The village is small and car-free, and its inns serve the usual Saxon repertoire: potato soup, schnitzel, fish from the region and homemade cake. Pick a table outside if the weather is dry. Be done by about 14:00 so you reach Königstein with time to spare.

Take the S1 up the river to Königstein, a 5-minute ride, then ride the fortress shuttle or walk up to the Königstein Fortress. It sits on a table mountain 240 m above the Elbe, covers 9.5 hectares and has walls up to 42 m high. A castle was first recorded here in 1233. Over the centuries it was Saxony's mountain stronghold and a state prison, and it was never taken. Dresden's art treasures were stored in its casemates in several wars, including the Second World War, so you may recognize part of the story from day one.

Walk the 1.8 km of ramparts for the views of the Elbe valley, then look into the well, which is 152.5 m deep and the second-deepest castle well in Europe. The ticket includes a lift to the plateau and all the exhibitions.

The Deutsches Hygiene-Museum has a boring name and an unusual collection. It was founded in 1912 and has been in its present building, designed by Wilhelm Kreis, since 1930. The permanent exhibition, Abenteuer Mensch (The Human Adventure), is built around the Transparent Woman, a see-through model of the human body. Her predecessor, the Gläserne Mensch or Transparent Man of 1930, made the museum famous. The rest of the exhibition looks at the body, health, sexuality and death.

What makes it more than a curiosity is that the museum is honest about its past. In the 1930s it was bent to the Nazis' racial policy and eugenics, and the building has a section on that history.

From the museum it's a short walk into the Großer Garten, a 1.8 square kilometer baroque park laid out in 1676 for Elector John George III and open to the public since 1814. Long avenues cross at a small summer palace, the Palais, in the middle. There are boats on the Carolasee, a miniature railway run by children and teenagers (this year's season ends on Saturday 31 October) and plenty of locals jogging and rollerblading.

The Rudolf-Harbig-Stadion, home of the football club Dynamo Dresden, is close too, and the streets around it get crowded on match days. From the park, Blasewitz is next.

Tram out to Blasewitz and the Schillerplatz, a leafy village square on the Elbe. The SchillerGarten is one of the oldest inns in Dresden, with a history that goes back to 1730, and a big beer garden by the river in summer. In colder weather you eat inside. It's open daily from 11:00.

Order a Schnitzel with fried potatoes, the Saxon Sauerbraten if you skipped it earlier, or a slice of cake. The Körnergarten, an inn from 1877 right by the bridge on the Loschwitz side, is the alternative.

The Blaues Wunder, the Blue Wonder, is a steel bridge from 1893 that connects Blasewitz and Loschwitz. Its main span of 141.5 m crosses the river with no pier in the water, which was a marvel when it opened. The name probably refers to the color and the astonishment, and in German ein blaues Wunder erleben means to get a nasty surprise.

Walk across for the view of the Elbe and the villas on the slopes. The bridge is under renovation, with scaffolding and enclosures on parts of it until about 2031, so it won't look like the postcard this year. The Waldschlösschen Bridge, about 3 km downstream, cost the Elbe Valley its UNESCO World Heritage status in 2009.

In Loschwitz, take the Schwebebahn, the suspension railway. It opened on 6 May 1901, is 273.8 m long and climbs 84.2 m up the slope to Oberloschwitz in 4.5 minutes. Next to it runs a funicular, the Standseilbahn. Neither is covered by a normal single or day ticket (a valid day ticket only gets you the reduced fare), and one up-and-down ticket lets you go up on one and come down on the other. Since you're walking west from the top, a one-way ticket is enough.

From the top, walk west along the slope past the three Elbe castles, the Elbschlösser: Schloss Albrechtsberg, the Lingnerschloss and Schloss Eckberg, built in the mid-19th century on the former vineyard slopes. The Lingnerschloss has a terrace with a good view over the river.

For the last night, go to the Brauhaus am Waldschlösschen, a brew pub on the hill above the Elbe, with a view of the river from its garden. The brewery marks 190 years of history and brews on site. Saxon dishes are on the menu, and a flight of its beers makes a fitting last night.

The beer garden usually closes for the season at the end of September, so expect to eat indoors. Reserve for weekends.