Dresden was a humdrum market center and Slavic fishing village before the Wettin dynasty’s Friedrich Augustus I came to power as elector of Saxony in 1694, when two nearby cities outdid his in size and prestige. Two centuries earlier, Leipzig already had a university and bustled with international trade-fair activity. And a tall, twin-steepled Gothic cathedral had stood on riverside Meissen’s Burgberg promontory since 1290.

The free-spending elector, nicknamed August the Strong (August der Starke) set out to make his capital a flamboyantly Baroque “Florence on the Elbe.” Flush with money from silver mines in the southerly Erzgebirge ore mountains, he put artisans to work and imported Italian stonemasons, along with Westphalian architect Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann and Bavarian sculptor Balthasar Permoser.     

Most of what they achieved turned into scorched rubble after the Anglo-American air raids of February 13-14, 1945—overnight attacks during which more than half a million incendiary bombs whipped up a hellish firestorm, causing a huge death toll and destruction throughout 80 percent of the illustrious Innenstadt. Proud Dresdners have been putting their city back together ever since.

Altstadt Contrasts

First-time visitors can get their bearings easily enough. Making an “S” curve and with broad meadows extending on both sides, the Elbe River divides Dresden into two parts:  Altstadt (the historic heart of town) on the south side and Neustadt on the north. Four inner-city bridges link the two. Don’t miss an opportunity for an evening stroll across the oldest of these, the 18th-century Augustusbrücke, for stunning views of Altstadt’s reconstructed, dramatically floodlit skyline. The panorama recalls accurately rendered cityscapes painted in an earlier era by Bernardo Bellotto, a.k.a. Canaletto.

Using the Altmarkt and Neumarkt for orientation, short walks get you to all major attractions. Overlooking the oldest of those open spaces, the blackened-sandstone Kreuzkirche is home of the Kreuzchor, a Dresden fixture since the 13th century. The 150-member boys’ choir sings vespers, Saturdays at 6pm. Early-1950s photos, taken from the clock tower, depict the bombed-out emptiness that surrounded the church.

Postwar buildings flanking the square exemplify “Stalinist-Classicist” architecture, partially relieved by an Altmarkt Galerie shopping complex. A Dresden Philharmonic  concert venue, 1969’s Kulturpalast is another domineering GDR leftover, its west  facade still covered by a gargantuan glories-of-socialism  mural.

Frauenkirche Reborn

The firebombing of Dresden led to the collapse of the mid-18th-century Protestant Frauenkirche, when its 12,200-ton dome was weakened by heat stress. Now, after 11 years of epic rebuilding, costing €180 million ($215 million), the church stands again, mesmerizing crowds of Neumarket onlookers. Don’t miss a chance to step inside—either for a church service or a chorale or organ recital—to admire the richly frescoed crypt and amazingly lofty, 95-meter (312-ft.) cupola.

Next, walk west to Augustusstrasse for another amazement: the Fúrstenzug (Princes’ Procession) frieze. On its 102-meter (334-ft.) expanse, nine centuries of Wettin rulers and their retinues are depicted in pompous regalia on 24,000 Meissen tiles. Credit goes to Wilhelm Walther for this extravaganza of wall art, completed in 1876. His kiln-baked tiles survived the firestorm.

Then continue to the marchers’ symbolic starting point: the neo-Renaissance Residenzschloss. Its west wing is devoted to the Grúnes Gewölbe (Green Vault), Augustus’s treasure trove of applied art, including pearl figurines, carvings, cut gems, mirrors, and alabaster goblets, plus ivory, amber, and ebony knicknacks, as well as inlaid and enameled cabinetry. 

Dresden’s Madonna

A century later, Gottfried Semper completed the oval Zwinger’s curviness by inserting the Gallery of the Old Masters, another of Dresden’s claims to cultural eminence. Italian paintings from the 15th to 17th centuries—by Rubens, Titian, Tintoretto, Correggio, Giorgione (Sleeping Venus), Botticelli, and other Renaissance masters—draw rapt attention. But none more so than a canvas purchased by August III in 1754 from Piacenza’s Church of San Sisto. The Sistine Madonna stands tiptoe on a cloud. Two tousle-haired angels gaze upward at Virgin and Child, who look straight ahead out of Raphael’s textbook-perfect composition.

That show-stopper shouldn’t distract you from other European works in an absolutely world-class collection. Cranach, Rubens, Rembrandt (a self-portrait), El Greco, Velázquez, and Vermeer (Girl Reading a Letter) are well-represented. Allow time for altar triptychs by Dürer and Van Eyck, and an entire room (#203) devoted to Canaletto’s finely detailed cityscapes. (Like contents of the Green Vault, the gallery’s most notable paintings were “borrowed” by the Soviets and kept in Moscow and Kiev for a decade after the war ended in 1945).

A performance in the Semperoper, destroyed when the February bombs fell and reopened exactly 40 years afterward, clinches the Dresden cultural experience. Richard Strauss affiliations are especially strong. His four best-known operas—Intermezzo, Salome, Elektra, and Der Rosenkavalier—premiered in this massive, resplendent Theaterplatz edifice, as did Richard Wagner’s Rienzi and Tannhäuser.
              
Shopping and Snacking

Specialty shops, department stores, and the flashy Wöhrl Plaza urban mall line  Altstadt’s Prager Strasse pedestrian corridor. You’ll find leather goods and clothing retailers—plus Café Mobilius—in Kleine Brüdergasse’s Haus am Zwinger. Kreutzkamm, a much older Konditorei café/bakery, has been in several Altmarkt locations since 1825.

Browse in Neustadt’s pricey art galleries on Königstrasse and stores along parallel  Hauptstrasse, where Kunst und Handwerk Etzol displays such traditional Erzegerbirge Christmastime charmers as candle-powered windmill pyramids and Rauchermännchen (smoking men) characters. Handicraft shops and artsy studios intermingle with taverns inside Görlitz Strasse’s Kunsthof-Passage. You can nosh on famed Dresdner Stollen while seated amidst the baked-goods, grocery, and wine-shop cubbyholes in circa-1886 Neustädter Markthalle (Metzer Strasse and Ritterstrasse entrances).

Excursions

Short-distance side-trip possibilities include the Oriental-themed summer palace, Schloss Pillnitz, 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) east of Dresden via Elbe steamer or riverside roadway. Take a lunch break in the suitably Baroque Schloss Hotel restaurant (tel. +49/351/26 140, fax 2614 400, info@schlosshotel.pillnitz.de, www.schlosshotel-pillnitz.de). Not far away, the Elbe flows through the Sächisches Schweiz National Park and its bizarre sandstone rock formations—accessible from two unspoiled spa towns: Pirna and Bad Schandau.
 
For another dose of Baroque opulence, head 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) north of the capital to reach Schloss Moritzburg, August the Strong’s photogenic hunting lodge (€6 admittance), in pastoral lake country, where artist Käthe Kollwitz’s Rüdenhof house is an extra attraction.

A 25-kilometer (15.53-mile) S-Bahn line connects Dresden with Meissen, where a Gothic cathedral and Albrechtsburg Castle tower over the Domplatz. You’ll find casual dining here at the Burgkeller restaurant and beer garden (+49/3521/414 00, fax 414 04,
burgkeller@meissen-hotel.com,  www.meissen-hotel.com). But the little city’s biggest draw is Talstrasse’s Staatliche Porzellan Manufactur, with its demonstration workshops and Schauhalle, displaying some 3,000 Meissen rarities from as long ago as 1710 (€8 combined admittance).                             .