Day trips from Dresden

Nearly every day trip from Dresden runs on one line, the S1: upstream to Rathen below the Bastei, Pirna and Schöna on the Czech border, downstream to Meissen. The exception is Moritzburg, reached by bus 477 from the Neustadt. A day ticket for the whole network (€21.40) covers all of it and costs less than two singles (€12.60 each way).

The Bastei — a two-and-a-half-hour loop

Kurort Rathen station is on the left bank and the village and the rocks are on the right, so the day starts with a ferry. The best walk is not up and back the same way but a loop: up to the bridge on the Bastei, then down the Schwedenlöcher gorge to the Amselsee lake and back into the village. That is 6.4 kilometres, two and a half hours on foot and 378 metres of climb and descent, with steps in the gorge — manageable for a sure-footed child, not for a pushchair.

Meissen — the manufactory and the Albrechtsburg

The manufactory is ten minutes' walk from Meißen Altstadt station, and the last stop, Meißen-Triebischtal, is closer. The ticket (€15 online, more at the desk) covers the workshop tour with an audio guide in fourteen languages, where the porcelain is still shaped and painted by hand, and the museum; it opens daily 9 to 5. Above the old town stand the Albrechtsburg, considered the first castle in Germany built as a residence rather than a fortress, and the cathedral. Half a day.

2 daysTwo days in the city itself, hour by hour:Dresden in 2 days →

Moritzburg — a palace on the water

Bus 477 leaves the Neustadt towards Radeburg and stops at the palace; the slower and lovelier way is the narrow-gauge Lößnitzgrundbahn steam railway from Radebeul. The palace (€12, with the HistoPad tablet guide) opens from late March to early November, daily 10 to 6, last entry 4.45; the park around the lake is free. From late November to the end of February the museum is shut, but a winter exhibition runs on Three Wishes for Cinderella, partly filmed here.

Pirna and the Czech side

Pirna is on the same line before Rathen, so under half an hour away, and works as a short stop on the way: a market square painted in the 18th century by Bernardo Bellotto. For the Czech side the S1 runs to Schöna, the last station before the border, where a ferry crosses the Elbe to Hřensko; beyond Bad Schandau the train runs only hourly, so plan the return by the timetable. The Pravčická brána, the largest natural sandstone arch in Europe, is three kilometres north-east of Hřensko, on private land, and entry is charged.

How long each takes

Every trip — half a day or a day, no car, on one day ticket

Hidden gemsIf one day stays in the city — places off the main plan:Dresden across the river: singing courtyards, a panorama in a gasometer →

What to know in advance

• The Rathen ferry is not on the ticket. It is outside the VVO network, so you pay on board, both ways; the Schöna–Hřensko ferry, by contrast, is on the ticket.
• The steamer upstream. It is slow — just reaching Pillnitz, far closer to Dresden than to Rathen, takes about two hours. If you take the boat, take it downstream, on the way back.
• The Czech side without a document. The border is crossed without checks, but it is another country, so carry your passport or national ID card.