Dresden across the river: singing courtyards, a panorama in a gasometer
Courtyards that play when it rains, a panorama twenty-seven metres high in an old gasometer, and a bridge two local men saved in 1945 — seven things off the baroque axis.
- Where
- The Neustadt across the river
- When
- Mornings for the dairy and the Panometer
- How long
- Half an hour to an hour each
Dresden is a clearly divided city: everything on the list is in the baroque centre, and everything that is not is across the river or out on the edges. So here the hidden things are not hunted down alleys but reached by crossing a bridge or taking a tram.
The Kunsthofpassage
A run of five linked courtyards in the Neustadt, each given its own theme. The best known is the Courtyard of the Elements: a blue facade covered in a network of gutters, funnels and pipes arranged so that water running through them makes sound — when it rains, the whole building plays. Entry is free, people live in these courtyards, and so you do not talk loudly here.
The Panometer
A former gasometer in Reick, in the south-east of the city, where Yadegar Asisi installs circular panoramas twenty-seven metres high, with more than three thousand square metres of painted surface. The subjects change every few years and are not always about Dresden, so check which one is up before you go. A ticket is €16.
Pfund's dairy
A milk shop at Bautzner Strasse 79, opened in 1892, whose walls and floor are faced in hand-painted Villeroy & Boch tiles — about 248 square metres of them, with historical scenes and inscriptions. Guinness World Records entered it in 1997 as the most beautiful dairy shop in the world. Entry is free, there is a restaurant upstairs, and cheese and milk are still sold below.
Four more
- The Blaues Wunder — a steel bridge of 1893 saved in May 1945 by two local men: each unaware of the other, they cut the cables of the charges the SS had laid, and a plaque on the bridge records it. You cross it on foot into Loschwitz, where two funiculars run up the hill, from 1895 and 1901.
- The Saxon paddle-steamer fleet — nine historic paddle steamers built between 1879 and 1929; seven date from the nineteenth century, the oldest being the Stadt Wehlen.
- The Grosser Garten — a baroque park with a park railway staffed by children and teenagers since 1950. Entry to the park is free.
- The Militärhistorisches Museum — a military museum through whose old arsenal building Daniel Libeskind drove a wedge of glass and steel. It is closed on Wednesdays, and on Mondays it stays open until 9 pm, with free entry from 6.
One hack
The panorama everyone photographs from the Brühl Terrace also exists from the other bank, from the Neustädter Ufer — and it is better there, because the whole run of domes fits the frame with water in front of it. It is free, it is empty, and it is exactly the view in Canaletto's eighteenth-century paintings, which the terrace cannot give you because from it you look down rather than across.
Before you go
Short answers to what people ask most before setting out.
Which of these cost nothing?
The Kunsthofpassage, Pfund's dairy, the Blaues Wunder and the Grosser Garten. You pay for the Panometer (€16), the steamers and the military museum, which is free on Mondays from 6 to 9 pm.
Where is the best view of Dresden?
From the Neustädter Ufer across the river, not from the Brühl Terrace — it is Canaletto's view.
Which day does not suit this list?
Wednesday, when the military museum is closed. Monday, by contrast, works well: the museum is open until 9 pm, with free entry from 6.
Ready for Dresden?
Where to next
Front row for the next trip
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