Elbwiesen

About this audio guide

This guide to the Elbwiesen in Dresden follows a summer ritual older than the meadow it came to: a painted wooden bird on a towering pole, crossbows, prizes, and a crown for one marksman. It starts from a letter written in Dresden in August eighteen fifty-eight, with royal carriages and ladies who outshot the men, and then traces the fair onto this riverbank, through a great fire and the years after the war. Best heard on the open grass, facing the river toward the Waldschlösschen Bridge.