Dresden Old Town Guided Walking Tour with Zwinger Visit

Neumarkt and the Frauenkirche

The walk starts at the Dresden Information by the Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady, whose 96-metre sandstone dome is the symbol of the city. Built between 1726 and 1743 as the largest Protestant church in Germany, it collapsed after the bombing of February 1945, and its blackened rubble was left in place as a war memorial throughout the years of East Germany. Reconstruction began in 1994 and the church reopened in 2005, with the original dark stones set back into the new facade like a patchwork. Around it, Neumarkt has been rebuilt with baroque townhouse facades, so the square looks much as it did in the eighteenth century.

Your guide explains the destruction and the rebuilding from the square before the loop begins, and you return here at the end. If you want to go inside the Frauenkirche or climb the dome, entry is not included but the church is usually open to visitors between services on weekdays, so plan it for after the tour.

Stallhof and the Fürstenzug

A three-minute walk brings you to the Stallhof, the stable yard of Dresden Castle built between 1586 and 1591, where the Saxon court held tournaments, jousts and animal fights. Its long arcaded gallery, the two bronze columns used for ring jousting and the Renaissance sgraffito walls make it one of the oldest preserved tournament grounds in Europe, and in December it hosts a medieval-style Christmas market. The yard is open to the public at all hours and is free.

On the outer wall of the gallery, along Augustusstrasse, runs the Fürstenzug, the Procession of Princes: a mural 102 metres long showing the rulers of the House of Wettin from the twelfth century to the nineteenth on horseback, followed by scientists, artists and craftsmen. Painted in the 1870s and transferred to about 23,000 Meissen porcelain tiles in 1907, it survived the bombing almost unharmed. The guide takes about ten minutes to decode the riders and their stories.

Brühl's Terrace and the Augustus Bridge

From the Fürstenzug a broad staircase with four bronze groups representing the times of day leads up to Brühl's Terrace, the 500-metre promenade built on the old city ramparts above the Elbe. It takes its name from the count who laid out gardens and palaces here in the 1740s and was opened to the public in 1814; it was later nicknamed the Balcony of Europe. Along it stand the Albertinum museum, the Academy of Fine Arts with its glass dome and the Sekundogenitur, and the view takes in the river, the meadows of the opposite bank and the paddle steamers at the pier below.

At the western end the terrace meets the Augustus Bridge, the sandstone crossing named after the elector-king Augustus the Strong and rebuilt in its present form in 1910 on a site bridged since the Middle Ages. This is the classic panorama of Dresden, and the guide pauses so you can take the photo of the Old Town skyline that fills every guidebook.

Theaterplatz: Semperoper and Hofkirche

Theaterplatz is the grandest square in Dresden, framed on three sides by the Semperoper, the Hofkirche and the Zwinger. The opera house, named after the architect who designed it, opened in 1878 after the first building burned down; destroyed again in 1945, it reopened on the fortieth anniversary of the bombing in February 1985 and is today the stage of the Saxon State Opera and the Staatskapelle orchestra, with a facade of Renaissance arches and a bronze chariot on the roof.

Beside it stands the Hofkirche, the Catholic Court Church built between 1739 and 1755 by an Italian architect for the Saxon electors, who had converted to Catholicism to gain the Polish crown. It is the largest church in Saxony, crowned by a balustrade with seventy-eight stone statues of saints, and holds the crypt of the Wettin rulers. The guide covers both buildings from outside in about fifteen minutes; Semperoper tours and church entry are not included.

The Zwinger and the hidden Nymphenbad

The Zwinger is the masterpiece of Dresden baroque, a vast courtyard of pavilions, galleries and fountains built between 1710 and 1728 for court festivities, with sculpture by Balthasar Permoser and the famous Crown Gate topped by a gilded Polish crown. The courtyard is free and open daily; the museums inside, the Old Masters Picture Gallery, the Porcelain Collection and the Mathematical-Physical Salon, need separate tickets and are closed on Mondays.

What makes this Dresden walking tour special is the visit to the Nymphenbad, the Bath of the Nymphs, a sunken fountain court tucked behind the Wall Pavilion where water cascades down a rocky grotto between statues of nymphs and sea creatures. It is one of the finest baroque fountains in Germany and easy to miss without a guide. You spend about twenty minutes in the Zwinger, including the Nymphenbad, with the guide explaining the festivals, the orangery and the courtly life for which it was built.

Dresden Castle and the Taschenbergpalais

The Residenzschloss, Dresden Castle, was the residence of the Saxon electors and kings from the late fifteenth century to 1918, a Renaissance palace with a tall Hausmannsturm tower, a sgraffito-decorated courtyard and, since its post-war reconstruction, the city's richest museums: the Historic and New Green Vault treasuries, the Turkish Chamber, the Armoury and the Coin Cabinet. Dresden Castle tickets are not part of the walk, but the guide shows you the entrances and tells you which collections are worth your time.

Across the narrow Taschenberg lane stands the Taschenbergpalais, a baroque palace built in the early 1700s next to the castle for a court favourite and linked to it by a covered bridge; today it is a luxury hotel. The walk passes the Hofkirche and the castle courtyard on its way back to Neumarkt, where the tour ends after about 1.5 hours in front of the Frauenkirche.