Altstadtthe south bank
- The FrauenkircheGeorge Bähr's stone bell over the Neumarkt: collapsed in 1945, left as a heap of rubble for…
- The ZwingerPöppelmann's baroque festival court of pavilions, fountains and galleries, closed on the…
- The SemperoperGottfried Semper's opera house on the Theaterplatz, burned in 1869, bombed in 1945, and…
- The ResidenzschlossThe Saxon rulers' palace, burned out in 1945 and rebuilt over decades, with both Green…
- The FürstenzugA procession of Saxony's rulers on horseback along Augustusstraße, scratched into plaster…
- Brühl's TerraceA promenade on the old city fortifications, high above the Elbe, between the Schlossplatz…
- The AlbertinumA Renaissance arsenal on Brühl's Terrace, rebuilt as a museum of modern art after the 2002…
- The HofkircheThe Baroque cathedral beside the palace, built for Saxony's Catholic rulers, with…
- The KreuzkircheThe city's main Lutheran church on the Altmarkt, home of the Kreuzchor, rebuilt after 1945…
- The YenidzeA 1909 tobacco factory beside the railway west of the Altstadt, with a colored glass dome…
Neustadtthe north bank
- The Golden RiderA gilded equestrian statue of Augustus the Strong on the Neustädter Markt, at the foot of…
- The Japanese PalaceA four-wing baroque palace on the Neustadt bank, rebuilt for Augustus the Strong to hold…
- The KunsthofpassageFive linked courtyards in the Äußere Neustadt, each built around its own theme, from a wall…
- Pfunds MolkereiA working shop on Bautzner Straße in the Neustadt whose walls, ceiling and floor have been…
- The Military History MuseumThe Bundeswehr's museum in an 1870s arsenal in the Albertstadt, cut through in 2011 by…
Upriver and the gardenseast of the center
- The Blaues WunderThe steel bridge between Blasewitz and Loschwitz, finished in 1893 without a pier in the…
- PillnitzThe Saxon court's riverside pleasure palace at Dresden's eastern edge: curved Chinese-style…
- The Großer GartenA rectangle of straight avenues, ponds and meadows south-east of the center, laid out from…
01How this list works
Eighteen sights, each with its own page: what it is, what happened to it, and what to look at when you arrive. No prices and no opening times — those change, and the operator is the only source that is right on the day.
Dresden sorts itself by the river. The Altstadt, on the south bank, holds most of the famous buildings within a few minutes' walk of each other. The Neustadt, across the Augustus Bridge, is the baroque New Town and the livelier nineteenth-century quarter beyond it. And upriver lie the Blaues Wunder bridge and the summer palace at Pillnitz.
02If you have one day
Start at the Frauenkirche, walk the Fürstenzug to the palace, cross the Theaterplatz between the Semperoper and the Hofkirche into the Zwinger, and finish on Brühl's Terrace as the light goes. See itineraries.
03The pattern to notice
Almost everything you see in the Altstadt was destroyed in February 1945 and built again — some of it within a decade, some of it only in this century. Once you know how to tell old stone from new, the city reads differently. See the rebuilt city.
