An Eastern Germany Odyssey, Part Two: Glorious Dresden

Story by Monique Burns

Feature Image: At night, Dresden’s baroque skyline with paddle steamers along the River Elbe (Photo: Karol Werner, Courtesy of the German National Tourist Office)

Link to Part Three: The Saxon Elblands

South of Berlin, north of Prague and west of Warsaw, Germany’s eastern reaches are rarely associated with the kind of over-the-top grandeur found at Louis XIV’s Versailles or Peter the Great’s St. Petersburg. But, for 800 years, the lords of Saxony turned Dresden, their capital city, into a dazzling treasure trove. August the Strong, 18^th-century Elector of Saxony, filled ornate baroque palaces with thousands of paintings, sculptures and jewels from around the world, including Raphael’s famous “Sistine Madonna.” Along the River Elbe, August and his court disported themselves at castles like Schloss Wackerbarth in Radebeul, Saxony’s oldest sparkling wine facility. In Meissen, in Schloss Albrechtsburg, August installed artisans to recreate the secret formula for Chinese porcelain, the era’s “white gold,” and established the famed Meissen Manufactory.

On the Elbe’s Left Bank, baroque and rococo landmarks rise, including the art-filled Zwinger Palace and Dresden Royal Palace. Just east, Dresden’s largest park, the 363-acre Grosser Garten, has its own baroque palace and a little red-and-green train that winds through the grounds, home to the Dresden Zoo, Botanical Garden, and Volkswagen’s Transparent Factory, offering visitors high-tech demonstrations and other activities.

On the river’s Right Bank, giant movie screens and stages are installed for summer concerts and “Film Nights on the Elbe;” waterside meadows tempt visitors to linger, and the Elbe Cycle Route invites riders to discover riverside towns like Meissen, Saxony’s porcelain capital, and Radebeul, home of Schloss Wackerbarth winery. North of Dresden’s center city, in the Neustadt, or New City, hip bars and music clubs rock well into the wee hours.

Arriving in Dresden after a two-hour German Rail ride from Berlin, you’ll find excellent, moderately priced accommodations right in the center city. Even a five-star hotel room can be had for $150 or less. Just be sure to book ahead, especially in warm weather, when Germans and other Europeans flock to Dresden. Across from the Zwinger Palace, the five-star Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski is in the ornate yellow-and-white palace that August the Strong built for his favorite mistress, the Countess Cosel.

On Neumarkt Square, around the Frauenkirche cathedral, you’ll find the five-star Hotel Suitess, the four-star Steigenberger Hotel de Saxe, and the Hilton Dresden with six restaurants, including a German eatery, an American-style steakhouse and various Asian restaurants. South of Neumarkt Square, on the Altmarkt, where Dresden’s month-long Christmas Market unfolds, are several three and four-star hotels, including a Holiday Inn.

I opted to base myself in Dresden’s Neustadt across the River Elbe and just north of the city center. The Bilderberg Bellevue Dresden, in the Inner Neustadt closest to downtown,  has comfortably furnished contemporary-style rooms, two restaurants, and a spa and wellness center with the city’s largest hotel pool.  It also boasts a lovely view of  Dresden from the Elbe River’s Right Bank, the so-called “Canaletto View,” named for the Italian artist who painted it three times, Bernardo Bellotto, nephew and student of the great Venetian painter Canaletto. Perfectly situated, well-appointed and moderately priced, the Bilderberg Bellevue was a good choice. Next time, though, I promised to snag a room at the nearby Hotel Bülow Palais, a five-star Relais & Châteaux property that’s home to the acclaimed restaurant, Caroussel Nouvelle.

Once settled, I strolled west across the Augustus Bridge, through adjoining shop-lined squares to Dresden’s baroque center city. Like most European cities, Dresden seems custom-made for meanderings. Some visitors though may opt for the daily Free Tour Dresden that meets on the Schlossplatz or the  Grand City Tour offered by the blue-and-green Stadtrundfahrt Dresden double-decker bus. With a pair of sturdy shoes and a Dresden Welcome Card in hand, I looked forward to walks in the crisp early-fall air interspersed with visits to the city’s incomparable monuments and museums.

Reduced to a pile of rubble after World War II Allied bombings, the ornate Frauenkirche on Neumarkt Square reopened in 2005. Atop its dome, which visitors can climb for panoramic views, rises a gold cross fashioned by the son of one of those British bomber pilots. The Frauenkirche is popular for classical concerts, including the spring Dresden Music Festival and the fall Bach series. To hear the 800-year-old Dresdner Kreuzchor, Dresden’s answer to the Vienna Choir Boys, head a few blocks east to the Kreuzkirche for Saturday-night vespers or Sunday-morning services.

Steps from the Frauenkirche, I found myself in the splendid rococo-style courtyard of the Zwinger Palace, a long promenade adorned with fountains, statuary and potted orange trees. Here is where August the Strong once hosted his exclusive garden parties for Dresden’s great and good. Today, the palace draws more egalitarian crowds to its three standout museums. The Dresden Porcelain Collection features August’s own collection of Chinese, Japanese and Meissen porcelain. The Royal Cabinet of Mathematical and Physical Instruments is a treasury of historical clocks, astronomical devices and other scientific instruments. My favorite, the Old Masters Picture Gallery, houses a choice collection of paintings from the 15^th through 18^th centuries.

The crowning glory of the Old Masters Picture Gallery is Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna,” a large-scale painting of the Madonna and Child featuring two of the world’s most famous winged cherubs, chubby celestial beings more properly known as “putti.”  I stood before the famous Renaissance work for at least 15 minutes, enraptured by what must be the most beautiful and most lifelike Madonna ever painted, afloat on a cloud, flanked by St. Sixtus and St. Barbara. Commissioned by Pope Julius II, the “Sistine Madonna” is said to have influenced three of Germany’s greatest men—Goethe, Wagner and Nietzsche—and was called “the greatest revelation of the human spirit” by none other than the great  Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Indeed, the “Sistine Madonna” has even been known to cause viewers to fall into fits of religious ecstasy, a fate I somehow miraculously escaped.

Another five museums fill nearby Dresden Royal Palace. The Historic Green Vault contains 3,000 jewel-studded objects and statuettes in amber, gold, silver and ivory. The New Green Vault has nearly 5,000 diamonds, including a rare 41-karat green diamond, the largest ever found. The Collection of Prints, Drawings and Photographs displays more than 500,000 drawings, prints and woodcuts by Old Masters like Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach, and modern artists like Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec and Germany’s own Käthe Kollwitz. The Dresden Armory houses 10,000 items, from suits of armor to riding gear, while its Turkish Chamber contains 600 priceless Ottoman artworks. The Numismatic Cabinet displays nearly 300,000 coins and medals from antiquity to the present.

With a packed schedule, I could only glance at the treasures, once again promising myself to one day return. Then I strolled over to the Theaterplatz, where, facing the Elbe, is the Semper Opera House, site of the annual Semper Opera Ball and Open-Air Ball in February. Built in 1841 by Gottfried Semper, who also redesigned Vienna’s Ringstrasse, the Opera House has been rebuilt several times, most recently after disastrous 2002 Elbe River floods. Opera buffs can tour the building and buy online tickets to performances on the same stage where Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” and Richard Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” premiered.  Fittingly, on the Semper’s roof, in a chariot drawn by four panthers, is none other than that ultimate lover of the good life, the Greek god Dionysus.

Along café-lined Brühl’s Terrace, also overlooking the Elbe, I found the Renaissance Revival-style Albertinum, housing the New Masters Gallery. Nearly 250 of the gallery’s modernist works were lost during the Nazi campaign against so-called degenerate art, but 3,000 works survived. As always, when visiting Germany, I found myself drawn to paintings by her native sons and daughters. Some include contemporary artists like Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter and Neo Rauch, German Romantics Caspar David Friedrich and Ludwig Richter, and Expressionists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, and Dresden-born Otto Dix. A stunning triptych by Dix titled “The War” vies with Picasso’s “Guernica” as the most arresting warfare painting ever created. International artists are also represented in the New Masters Gallery, from French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists like Monet and Van Gogh to contemporary artists like Belgium’s Luc Tuymans.

After a long morning of museum-hopping, I was ready to relax over a good meal.  Strolling back to Dresden’s central square, I popped into the Sophienkeller, in the Hotel Taschenbergpalais’ vaulted cellars, and sampled such hearty Saxon fare as potato soup with sausages and sauerbraten with red cabbage and potato dumplings. With tented dining pavilions and buxom serving wenches recalling knightly days, the Sophienkeller is a little touristy. But given the moderate prices and the squeals of delight from children, families love it. Moreover, the food—including light fare like fish and salads—is well prepared and portions are generous. If the Sophienkeller is crowded, you’ll find similar fare, also well priced, at the Pulver Turm restaurant next to the Frauenkirche.

Dresden has a spate of first-class restaurants and, in a real coup for such a small city, it boasts three one-star Michelin restaurants, including Elements, offering creative German and international cuisine in a high-ceilinged former gas-turbine factory in the Outer Neustadt. Not well-heeled enough to dine at a Michelin restaurant on that trip, I was fortunate to find a table at the highly regarded Alte Meister right in the city center. There, between the Zwinger Palace’s rococo splendor and the Theaterplatz’s glittering lights, I feasted on such innovative dishes as pear-and-gorgonzola tartlet, pork fillet with barley risotto and parsnips, and peach panna cotta with hazelnut brittle. Scrumptious.

Destroyed in 1945 by World War II Allied bombing raids, followed by nearly 50 years of East German Communist rule, Dresden has made a remarkable comeback. With its center city largely restored by 2015,  the 25^th anniversary of German Reunification, Dresden became, once again, the much-beloved “Florence on the Elbe,” offering the finest in European culture along with outdoor pursuits and kid-friendly attractions.

Strolling around the city, I was almost always in view of the River Elbe, afloat with the long green-and-white paddle steamers of the Saxon Steamship Company, the world’s oldest and largest paddleboat fleet. In May, the paddle steamers assemble for the Parade of the Fleet. Later, during the international Dixieland Festival, their decks host more than a score of jazz bands. The paddle steamers are also the main event at the Dresden City Festival in August.

After dinner, some cities roll up their sidewalks—but not Dresden. There are plenty of late-night bars and hotel lounges downtown. Though I was headed the next day to the Saxon Elblands, on the third leg of my journey, I decided to take a couple of hours to enjoy the nightlife in Dresden’s Outer Neustadt.  After all, it was only a 35-minute tram ride from the center city and a 15-minute ride from my hotel.

Along Alaunstrasse and neighboring streets, I discovered ethnic eateries serving Chinese, Italian, Thai and Turkish cuisine, vegan and vegetarian restaurants, late-night bakeries and döner-kebab shops. Interspersed, I spotted a few local bars and raucous music clubs. There also were vintage record stores, goldsmith and jewelry shops, second-hand clothing boutiques, and 60s-style head shops displaying colorful Turkish hookahs. Billed as Dresden’s “Alternative Quarter,” Alaunstrasse is a far cry from Dresden’s stately baroque center-city, but the lusty lords of Saxony, passionate practitioners of the good life, would have loved it, as I did.

IF YOU GO: Germany’s national carrier Lufthansa has frequent flights to Berlin from major U.S. cities. For train travel between Berlin, Dresden, and other cities in Saxony and Thuringia, purchase the German Rail Pass.  For free museum admission and other discounts, purchase the Dresden Welcome Card or Dresden Museums Card. The following links to attractions might be helpful: Dresden State Museums, Saxon Steamship Company, Elbe Cycle Route, Stadtrundfahrt Dresden.  Here are links to hotels and restaurants mentioned in the article: Hotel Suitess, Steigenberger Hotel de Saxe, Hilton Dresden, Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski, Bilderberg Bellevue Dresden, Hotel Bülow Palais and restaurants Alte Meister, Caroussel Nouvelle, Elements and Sophienkeller. For more information, log on to Dresden Tourism, Visit Dresden, Visit Saxony and Germany Travel.