Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Museums
Leipzig
The Leipzig Panometer is a former gas holder in the south of Leipzig where artist Yadegar Asisi displays his gigantic 360-degree panoramas. You climb a viewing tower in the middle of the round hall and find yourself surrounded by a strikin…
Landmarks
Leipzig
Auerbachs Keller in Leipzig is probably the most famous restaurant in Germany. Goethe immortalized this vaulted wine cellar beneath the Mädler Passage in his drama "Faust," and visitors from around the world still come to dine where the le…
Museums
Leipzig
The Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig (Museum der bildenden Künste, or MdbK) is one of Germany's major art museums, housed in a striking glass cube in the middle of the old town. Its collection runs from late medieval art and Old Masters such as…
Castles
Meißen
Albrechtsburg Castle in Meissen is often called the first true palace built in Germany, and it is where Europe's first porcelain factory began. Set on a rocky hill above the Elbe River next to Meissen Cathedral, the late Gothic residence m…
Old towns & squares
Bautzen
Bautzen's Old Town sits on a granite bluff above the Spree River in eastern Saxony, crowned by medieval towers, bastions and Baroque townhouses. Often called the "city of towers," it is also the cultural capital of the Sorbs, a Slavic mino…
Old towns & squares
Pirna
Pirna's Old Town and Sonnenstein Castle make a rewarding stop on the Elbe River between Dresden and the sandstone cliffs of Saxon Switzerland. The market square still looks much as the painter Canaletto (Bernardo Bellotto) captured it in t…
Museums
Zwickau
Drive an Audi and you are driving a piece of Zwickau's history. This is where August Horch founded his first car company in 1904, and when he fell out with the supervisory board and was no longer allowed to use his own name, he simply call…
Theme parks
Leipzig
Belantis on the southern edge of Leipzig is the largest theme park in central Germany and a popular family day out in Saxony. Built on a former open-cast lignite mine next to today's lake district, it spreads eight themed worlds across the…
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…
Castles
Kurort Oybin
In the middle of the Zittau Mountains, a sandstone rock rises about 120 metres above the village of Oybin. On its summit Emperor Charles IV began building a residence for his retirement in 1364 and a few years later founded a monastery, wh…
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…
Churches & monasteries
Freiberg
A cathedral that was never the seat of a bishop, yet one of the most richly furnished churches in Saxony: the Cathedral of St. Mary on Untermarkt in Freiberg owes its treasures to silver mining. It holds a 13th-century portal with a firm p…
Landmarks
Leipzig
The Gewandhaus in Leipzig is the city's great concert hall on Augustusplatz and home of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, one of the oldest and most celebrated orchestras in the world. The striking 1981 building, with its huge glass front and the…
Palaces
Leipzig
Gohlis Palace (Gohliser Schlösschen) in the Leipzig district of Gohlis is a small Baroque summer palace from the 1750s. It is described as the last surviving Baroque palace and estate complex around Leipzig. If you are looking for things t…
Industrial heritage
Netzschkau
The Göltzsch Viaduct (Göltzschtalbrücke) near Netzschkau in the Vogtland region of Saxony is the largest brick bridge in the world, 574 meters long and 78 meters high, with 98 arches. Built in the 1840s and 1850s, it still carries trains o…
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…
Monuments
Chemnitz
Locals affectionately call it the "Nischel", a central German word for head or skull. In the middle of the city centre, Karl Marx gazes over Brückenstraße as a 7.1-metre bronze head; with its plinth the monument stands over 13 metres tall…
Churches & monasteries
Ostritz
St. Marienthal Abbey (Kloster St. Marienthal) in Ostritz is described as the oldest continuously existing Cistercian nunnery in Germany. It stands on the Lusatian Neisse river right on the Polish border in Upper Lusatia, east of Dresden. T…
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…