Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Gardens & parks
Leipzig
The Leipzig University Botanical Garden is a calm green pocket close to the city center. On about 3.5 hectares you will find roughly 10,000 plant species, from medicinal herbs and water lilies to tropical greenhouse plants. If you are look…
Castles
Kriebstein
Kriebstein Castle in Saxony is one of the best-preserved late Gothic knight's castles in Germany. It sits on a rock spur high above the Zschopau river, with a keep about 45 meters tall, and houses a museum with rooms, murals and furnishing…
Castles
Stolpen
Stolpen Castle (Burg Stolpen) in Saxony stands on a basalt hill about 27 kilometers east of Dresden and is best known as the prison of Countess Cosel, the former mistress of Augustus the Strong. The medieval fortress of the bishops of Meis…
Museums
Dresden
The German Hygiene Museum (Deutsches Hygiene-Museum) in Dresden is one of Germany's most unusual museums: not a medical collection but a museum about the human being, covering the body, health, emotions and society. Its white 1930 building…
Nature parks
Dresden
The Dresdner Heide (Dresden Heath) is the large forest northeast of central Dresden: roughly 50 square kilometers of pine and mixed woodland with streams, meadows and a dense network of hiking trails. Despite its English nickname it is a f…
Mountains & peaks
Oberwiesenthal
The Fichtelberg above Oberwiesenthal is the highest mountain in Saxony at 3,986 feet (1,214.88 m), and in Cold War times it was the highest peak in East Germany. Its summit, crowned by the Fichtelberghaus with its lookout tower and a centu…
Old towns & squares
Görlitz
The Görlitz Old Town is one of the best-preserved historic centers in Central Europe and a highlight of any trip to eastern Germany. Its squares and lanes, lined with Late Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Art Nouveau buildings, came throug…
Landmarks
Leipzig
Leipzig Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) is the largest terminal station in Europe by covered floor area and one of Germany's most impressive railway buildings. A sandstone facade 298 meters wide, soaring halls and a three-level shopping mal…
Industrial heritage
Leipzig
The Leipzig Cotton Mill (Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei) in the Plagwitz district is an industrial monument that now thrives as an art district. On about ten hectares of red-brick halls, artists work in studios while galleries and workshops o…
Waterfalls
Sebnitz
The Lichtenhain Waterfall in the Kirnitzsch Valley near Sebnitz is one of the oldest visitor attractions in Saxon Switzerland, the sandstone region southeast of Dresden. It is a small cascade with a twist: a weir holds the stream back and…
Landmarks
Leipzig
The Mädler Passage (Mädlerpassage) is one of the most beautiful shopping arcades in Germany and a highlight of any walk through central Leipzig. Between Grimmaische Straße and Neumarkt, boutiques, cafes and restaurants line a glass-roofed…
Museums
Dresden
The Panometer Dresden is a former gasometer in the Reick district where artist Yadegar Asisi shows enormous 360-degree panoramas. The name blends "panorama" and "gasometer." If you are looking for unusual things to do in Dresden, this imme…
Landmarks
Dresden
Pfunds Molkerei (Pfund's Dairy) in Dresden's Neustadt district has been called the most beautiful dairy shop in the world. The small sales room on Bautzner Straße is covered from floor to ceiling in hand-painted Villeroy & Boch tiles, maki…
Palaces
Dresden
Albrechtsberg Palace (Schloss Albrechtsberg) in Dresden's Loschwitz district is the grandest of the three Elbe palaces, a Neoclassical villa-palace on a hillside above the river with terraces, ponds and landscaped parkland. If you are look…
Palaces
Augustusburg
Augustusburg Castle (officially a hunting lodge) crowns a hilltop on the edge of the Ore Mountains near Chemnitz in Saxony. Built in the 16th century for Elector Augustus, the white Renaissance complex is nicknamed the "Crown of the Ore Mo…
Palaces
Colditz
Colditz Castle in Saxony is a Renaissance castle on a porphyry cliff above the town of Colditz, and one of the most famous prisoner-of-war sites of World War II. From 1939 to 1945 it served as Oflag IV-C, a camp for Allied officers whose e…
Palaces
Torgau
Hartenfels Castle in Torgau is one of the most important Renaissance palaces in Germany and the largest fully preserved palace of the early Renaissance in the country. On the banks of the Elbe in Saxony, it is known for its free-standing s…
Palaces
Müglitztal
Weesenstein Castle (Schloss Weesenstein) in the Müglitz valley is an eight-story castle clinging to a rock above the river, famous for having been built partly from top to bottom. Located south of Dohna in Saxony, it is one of the more unu…
Museums
Dresden
The Dresden Transport Museum (Verkehrsmuseum Dresden) sits in the historic Johanneum on Neumarkt square, a few steps from the Frauenkirche. Across roughly 5,000 square meters it tells the story of road, rail, water and air travel, from an…
Landmarks
Dresden
The Yenidze in Dresden is a former cigarette factory built to look like a mosque, complete with a colored glass dome and a chimney disguised as a minaret. Nicknamed the "Tobacco Mosque," this quirky landmark stands just west of the Old Tow…
Museums
Leipzig
The Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig (Forum of Contemporary History) is a free museum in the heart of Leipzig that tells the story of dictatorship and democracy in East Germany after 1945. Located on Grimmaische Strasse between the Market…
Zoos
Dresden
Dresden Zoo sits in the leafy Großer Garten park, a short walk from the city's baroque old town. Opened in 1861, it is the fourth-oldest zoo in Germany and covers about 13 hectares, making it an easy half-day outing. Its newest attraction,…