Dresden
A collaboration between the architect Matthäus Pöppelmann and the sculptor Balthasar Permoser, the Zwinger was built between 1710 and 1728 on the orders…
Must-see attractions in Saxony
Dresden
Dresden's extraordinary Renaissance city palace, home to its Saxon rulers from 1485 to 1918, now shelters multiple precious collections – including the…
Saxony
Next to the historic porcelain factory south of the Altstadt, this museum is the place to witness the astonishing artistry and artisanship that makes…
Leipzig
This church has Romanesque and Gothic roots, but since 1797 has sported a striking neoclassical interior with palm-like pillars and cream-coloured pews…
Militärhistorisches Museum Dresden
Dresden
Even devout pacifists will be awed by this engaging museum, housed in a 19th-century arsenal bisected by a bold glass-and-steel wedge designed by Daniel…
Leipzig & Western Saxony
Occupying a greater part of the 16th-century Freundenstein castle, this astounding collection of minerals makes human-made art seem insignificant compared…
Dresden
This astounding collection of European art from the 16th to 18th centuries houses an incredible number of masterpieces, including Raphael's famous Sistine…
Dresden
The Renaissance-era former arsenal is the stunning home of the Galerie Neue Meister (New Masters Gallery), which displays an array of paintings by some of…
Leipzig
The university-run Museen im Grassi harbours three fantastic collections that are often overlooked, despite being a five-minute walk from Augustusplatz…
Leipzig & Western Saxony
Occupying a converted department store, this state-of-the-art museum is a brave attempt to celebrate all those crocks, bones and pieces of primitive…
Leipzig
This imposing modernist glass cube is the home of Leipzig's fine art museum and its world-class collection of paintings from the 15th century to today,…
Eastern Saxony
Even before they started travelling the world, the Hernhutters were so obsessed with exotic lands they purchased items brought from Australia by Captain…
Dresden
The Historic Green Vault displays some 3000 precious items in the same fashion as during the time of August der Starke, namely on shelves and tables…
Leipzig & Western Saxony
A former 1930 bank building, built in austere New Objectivity style, is now a gallery of 20th-century art, most famous for its expressionist works by such…
Saxon Switzerland
Festung Königstein is the largest intact fortress in Germany, and so imposing and formidable that noone in history has ever even bothered to attack it,…
Dresden
The domed Frauenkirche – Dresden’s most beloved symbol – has literally risen from the city's ashes. The original church graced the skyline for two…
Saxony
A magnificent sight on a rocky crag high above the Müglitz River, Schloss Weesenstein is an amazing alchemy of styles, blending medieval roots with…
Saxony
An impossibly romantic vision in yellow and white surrounded by an enormous moat-like lake and a park that is at turns wild and formal, baroque Schloss…
Saxony
Baroque has gone exotic at Schloss Pillnitz, a delightful pleasure palace, festooned with fanciful Chinese flourishes. This is where the Saxon rulers once…
Saxony
Lording it over Meissen, the 15th-century Albrechtsburg was the first German castle constructed for residential purposes, but is more famous as the…
Leipzig & Western Saxony
Zwickau’s top attraction is this amazing car museum that will enlighten and entertain even non-petrolheads. Housed within the original early-20th-century…
Leipzig
The happy marriage of a panorama (a giant 360-degree painting) and a gasometer (a giant gas tank) is a panometer. The unusual concept is the brainchild of…
Dresden
The New Green Vault presents some 1000 objects in 10 modern rooms. Key sights include a frigate fashioned from ivory with wafer-thin sails, a cherry pit…
Leipzig
At Leipzig's Ethnological Museum, you can plunge into an eye-opening journey through the cultures of the world.
Dresden
The aptly named Grosser Garten (Great Garden) is a relaxing refuge during the warmer months. A visitor magnet here is the modernised Zoo Dresden in the…
Leipzig & Western Saxony
The very name Colditz is enough to send goosebumps down many people's spines, and so it might come as a surprise that the famous WWII-era high security…
Dresden
Take a web of grimy courtyards, a load of paint and a bunch of visionary Dresden artists and out comes the Kunsthofpassage, one of the most refreshingly…
Eastern Saxony
Unesco-listed Muskauer Park is the verdant masterpiece of 19th-century celebrity landscape gardener, Prince Hermann von Pückler, who inherited his family…
Eastern Saxony
The Heiliges Grab is a close replica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem as it looked in the Middle Ages during the time of the Crusades. Among the…
Eastern Saxony
Left exactly as it was in the late 1980s, the Bautzen II prison is now the Gedenkstätte Bautzen, dedicated to the victims of political oppression. You can…
Leipzig & Western Saxony
Packed with touchingly naive wooden and stone sculpture, Freiberg's outstanding Lutheran cathedral contains the first large organ built by the famous…
Dresden
One of Germany's most famous opera houses, the Semperoper opened in 1841 and has hosted premieres of famous works by Richard Strauss, Carl Maria von Weber…
Leipzig
Leipzig's largest cemetery is a vast and beautiful park, filled with rosebay shrubs, populated by squirrels, rabbits and foxes and centred on a building…
Saxony
In a former army barracks, you can snoop around a furnished apartment, sit in a classroom with a portrait of GDR leader Walter Ulbricht glowering down at…
Leipzig & Western Saxony
People have been digging into the ore-rich rocks near Freiberg for 800 years. The result is a network of mines, one of which – Reiche Zeche – can be…
Schlesisches Museum zu Görlitz
Eastern Saxony
The splendid Schönhof, a 1526 Renaissance residence, forms the atmospheric backdrop to this comprehensive exhibit on the culture and history of Silesia, a…
Eastern Saxony
Famously featuring in Wes Anderson's film The Grand Budapest Hotel, this architectural stunner is centred on a galleried atrium accented with wooden…
Leipzig
In the GDR the walls had ears, as is chillingly documented in this exhibit in the former Leipzig headquarters of the East German secret police (the Stasi)…
Saxony
Meissen’s dome, a high-Gothic masterpiece begun in 1250, does not impress as much by its size as by the wealth of its interior decorations. Stained-glass…
Leipzig
This fascinating, enormous and well-curated exhibit covers the political history of the GDR, from division and dictatorship to fall-of-the-Wall ecstasy…
