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Dresden

Dresden is Saxony's Baroque capital on the Elbe, rebuilt from the ruins of 1945 and explored best with audio guides that tell the second story behind every façade.

Dresden sits on both banks of the Elbe, and the skyline you see from the river is the one Augustus the Strong set out to build. The Saxon elector, who became King of Poland in 1697, drew architects, painters and musicians to his court, and most of the Baroque landmarks that earned the city its nickname "Florence on the Elbe" date from his reign and his son's. On the night of 13 February 1945 that inner city was largely destroyed in a single raid; what stands today is the result of a decades-long rebuilding that only finished its most famous chapter in 2005.

That double history, splendour and loss and return, is what makes Dresden a city to explore with self-guided audio guides rather than a map alone. Nearly every façade has a second story underneath the first. The Frauenkirche is the clearest example: its dome dominates the Neumarkt today, but the church lay in ruins for almost fifty years before a reconstruction that began in 1994 and was completed in 2005, a year before Dresden's 800th anniversary. The audio guide for the church tells that story before you step inside.

The Zwinger and Theaterplatz

A few minutes' walk west, the Dresden Zwinger is Augustus the Strong's showpiece: built as an orangery and court festival ground, it is now a ring of pavilions and galleries around a vast courtyard. It houses the Old Masters Picture Gallery, the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon and the Porcelain Collection, and the audio guide helps you read the sculpture-crowded pavilions as the stage set they were meant to be. Next door on Theaterplatz stands the Semperoper Dresden, Gottfried Semper's opera house, rebuilt after a fire in 1869 and again after the war. The square between them is where most visitors first understand why Canaletto wanted to paint this city.

The Residenzschloss and the Procession of Princes

The Residenzschloss was the seat of the Wettin rulers for centuries and now holds the state art collections, including the Historisches Grünes Gewölbe, Augustus the Strong's treasure chamber. On the castle's outer wall along Augustusstraße runs the Fürstenzug, the Procession of Princes: a mural roughly 102 metres long showing 35 margraves, electors, dukes and kings of the House of Wettin. Painted in the 1870s and transferred to about 23,000 Meissen porcelain tiles between 1904 and 1907, it came through the 1945 bombing with only minimal damage, one of the few things in the old town that did.

Brühl's Terrace and the Canaletto view

Brühl's Terrace is Dresden's riverside promenade, laid out in the 1740s as Count Brühl's private garden on top of the old fortifications and nicknamed the "Balcony of Europe". Legend has it Augustus the Strong left a thumbprint in its balustrade. From here you look across to the Neustadt bank, and from the Neustadt bank you look back at the terrace, the Albertinum and the domes, which is the classic Canaletto view. Cross the Augustus Bridge at dusk and listen to the guide on the way; the whole Baroque front lights up behind you.

Across the river in the Neustadt

The Neustadt is where Dresden stops being a museum. Past the Golden Rider, the gilded equestrian statue of Augustus the Strong at the end of the bridge, the Äußere Neustadt, largely spared during the GDR years, is the city's bar, café and street-art quarter. Its best-known corner is the Kunsthofpassage Dresden, a chain of themed backyards between Alaunstraße and Görlitzer Straße, where a cascade of funnels and pipes on a blue façade plays music whenever it rains. A short walk away, Pfunds Molkerei is a dairy shop so lavishly lined with hand-painted Art Nouveau tiles that it draws more visitors than customers.

Upriver to the Blue Wonder and Pillnitz

Follow the Elbe east and the city turns into villas, vineyards and meadows. The Loschwitz Bridge, opened in 1893 and known to everyone as the Blaues Wunder, the Blue Wonder, links the districts of Blasewitz and Loschwitz; near the end of the war an SS unit tried to blow it up, and two locals cut the detonator wires. On the Loschwitz side the Dresden Suspension Railway climbs the slope to a viewpoint over the river. Further upstream, Pillnitz Castle is Augustus the Strong's summer palace, a riverside ensemble whose gardens are as much the point as the buildings.

Getting around

The Altstadt is compact and best explored on foot with your audio guide, starting from the Neumarkt. Trams link the old town with the Neustadt in minutes, and for the Blue Wonder and Pillnitz the pleasant option is the riverside path or a paddle steamer from the Terrassenufer. Allow a full day for the Altstadt alone and a second for the river and the Neustadt.