Dresden was nearly obliterated in a single night of Allied firebombing in February 1945, an event that remains one of the most debated episodes of the Second World War in Europe. The Baroque old town visible today (earning the historical nickname 'Florence on the Elbe') is largely a postwar and post-reunification reconstruction, completed piece by piece using salvaged original stone wherever possible.
The Rebuilt Old Town
The Frauenkirche, reduced to rubble in the 1945 bombing and left as a war memorial by the East German government, was finally rebuilt after reunification using computer modelling to sort and replace the original blackened stones wherever they could be identified, the mismatched dark and light stonework on its exterior is a deliberate, visible record of what survived.
The Zwinger Palace, a Baroque masterpiece of courtyards and pavilions, houses the Old Masters Picture Gallery, including Raphael's Sistine Madonna, one of the most significant art collections in Germany, in a building that itself required extensive postwar reconstruction.
Saxon Culture
The Semperoper opera house, rebuilt twice (once after an 1869 fire and again after 1945) remains one of Europe's most acoustically celebrated venues, with tours available during the day and performances most evenings for those who book ahead.
The Fürstenzug, a 102-metre mural of Saxon rulers made from over 24,000 Meissen porcelain tiles, survived the bombing largely intact and remains one of the largest porcelain artworks in the world, a striking, unexpected sight running along an outer palace wall.
Recommended Stay · Dresden · Old Town
Taschenbergpalais Kempinski
A reconstructed 18th-century royal palace directly connected to the Zwinger via a glass sky bridge, in the heart of Dresden's rebuilt Baroque quarter.
