Day trips from Dresden

Seven places to visit from Dresden: Meißen, Moritzburg, the Bastei, Königstein Fortress, Bad Schandau, Bautzen and Görlitz, with what to see at each and how to get there.

Meißen

The castle hill of Meissen above red-roofed houses and a cemetery, with the cathedral’s spire and the Albrechtsburg on top, under a blue sky with white clouds and bare trees framing the view.

The castle hill with the Albrechtsburg and the cathedral, seen from the south. Photographed on 24 February 2018.

Jörg Blobelt Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

The Albrechtsburg in Meißen is a late-Gothic castle that was built between 1471 and 1524. Inside it, the Große Wendelstein is a staircase of curved steps that winds around an openwork spindle. Porcelain production in Meißen began on 6 June 1710 at the Albrechtsburg.

The Albrechtsburg’s white gabled wall and red roof above green trees, with the cathedral’s openwork spire rising at the right against a pale sky.

The Albrechtsburg from the north side. Photographed on 21 September 2015.

Radler59 Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

The Museum of the Meissen Porcelain Foundation at the manufactory in Meißen displays works from the manufactory's 300 years of history. Meißen Cathedral (Dom zu Meißen) is a building of the 13th century. A carillon of Meissen porcelain bells has hung in a window opening of the Frauenkirche tower in Meißen since 1929. Winemaking has been part of life in the Meißen region for over 800 years.

Checked 14 October 2026 From Dresden, the S1 train runs to Meißen-Altstadt and Meißen-Triebischtal. Check the Albrechtsburg's own page before you go.

Moritzburg

Schloss Moritzburg on the far shore of a still lake, a small castle with towers reflected in the water, under a heavy sky of grey and white clouds.

Schloss Moritzburg across the Schlossteich. Photographed on 20 August 2024.

Bybbisch94 Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0

Duke Moritz of Saxony had a hunting lodge in the Renaissance style built in 1542 on a granite outcrop in the Friedewald forest. Major rebuilding of the Renaissance structure into a baroque hunting and pleasure palace began at Schloss Moritzburg in 1723. The architect Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann was commissioned with the project and had new ponds and animal enclosures laid out.

The Fasanenschlösschen, a pink palace with a green copper roof and a cupola, at the end of a long lawn between clipped hedges, under a blue sky with white clouds.

The Fasanenschlösschen. Photographed on 18 June 2017.

Kora27 Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

The Fasanenschlösschen (Little Pheasant Palace) was built for the Elector between 1770 and 1776 in Chinese-inspired (chinoise) forms. By royal decree of 23 January 1828, 38 stallions were to be stationed as state sires in Moritzburg's hunting stables, which were built in 1733. The narrow-gauge Lößnitzgrundbahn line was officially inaugurated on 15 September 1884. Schloss Moritzburg appears in the Czech-German film production Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella (Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel), in which Cinderella rides at a gallop to the castle.

Checked 14 October 2026 From Dresden, take a train to Dresden-Neustadt and continue on bus line 477 toward Radeburg to Schloss Moritzburg. The castle's website also names the historic narrow-gauge railway, the Lößnitzdackel, from Radebeul to Moritzburg. Check the castle's own page before you go.

The Bastei

The wooded cliffs and rock towers of the Bastei seen from below under a blue sky with white clouds, with dark pines on the slope in front.

The cliffs of the Bastei. Photographed on 6 September 2025.

Lukas Beck Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0

The Bastei itself is a rock pulpit (Felskanzel), 305 m high according to the national park, that rises vertically 194 m above the Elbe. The present Bastei bridge was built in 1850/51, in connection with the opening of the railway line in the Elbe valley. A stone bridge links the Bastei with the rock castle Neurathen (Felsenburg Neurathen), a castle from the 13th century. The Basteibrücke is a sandstone bridge 76 m long that is specially protected today as a technical monument.

Sandstone cliffs of the Bastei in horizontal layers of grey and ochre, topped with pines, under a blue sky with thin white clouds.

Sandstone cliffs at the Bastei. Photographed on 4 September 2013.

Geolina163 Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

The Felsenbühne Rathen (Rathen rock stage) was opened on 24 May 1936. In spring 2023 the Free State of Saxony opened a new viewing platform at the Bastei.

Checked 14 October 2026 From Dresden Hauptbahnhof, take S-Bahn line S1 towards Schöna and get off at Kurort Rathen. From there a cable ferry, the Gierseil-Fähre, crosses the Elbe. Check the national park's own page before you go.

Königstein Fortress

The Königstein fortress on the edge of its wooded table mountain above the Elbe, with the river and the village of Königstein below, under a blue sky.

Königstein Fortress above the Elbe. Photographed on 29 April 2016.

Jörg Blobelt Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

The fortress complex has more than 50 above-ground and underground fortification structures from over four centuries. The fortress well is 152.5 metres deep. Miners from the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) sank the well under the direction of mining master Martin Planer.

The Brunnenhaus, a long white building with a pedimented centre and rows of arched windows, under a dark cloudy sky, with a few visitors in front of it.

The Brunnenhaus on the fortress. Photographed on 20 June 2020.

Z thomas Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

Johann Friedrich Böttger, co-inventor of European porcelain, and the Social Democrat August Bebel were among the prisoners of the fortress's state prison. A Königstein wine barrel holding 238,600 litres stood in the cellar of the Magdalenenburg until 1819. In 2005 a second lift, the Panoramalift, was built on the spot where the fortress's last outside lift had stood. The chimney-sweep journeyman Sebastian Abratzky climbed the Königstein barefoot through a rock cleft.

Checked 14 October 2026 The S1 runs from Dresden to Königstein station; the line continues to Schöna. Check the fortress's own page before you go.

Bad Schandau

The riverfront of Bad Schandau with a long hotel front and a church tower below autumn-coloured wooded hills, and paddle steamers at the landing stage on the Elbe.

Bad Schandau and the Elbe, with paddle steamers at the landing stage. Photographed on 18 October 2008.

Jörg Blobelt Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

Schandau was first mentioned in a document in 1430 and was called a small town (Städtchen) in 1445. German settlers founded a trading post at the start of the 14th century on an alluvial cone where the Kirnitzsch flows into the Elbe. The Historischer Personenaufzug (historic passenger lift) is a 50-metre-high steel-frame tower built in 1904 in Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) style, with a viewing platform.

A yellow tram with two trailer cars on a curving road beside a rock overhang, in a woodland of bare trees.

A Kirnitzschtalbahn tram. Photographed on 29 March 2026.

Oleksandr Dede Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

The Kirnitzschtalbahn, a tram line, has carried hikers, tourists and spa guests since 1898. The NationalparkZentrum Sächsische Schweiz, the national park's visitor centre in Bad Schandau, was opened to the public on 24 October 2001 after four years of planning and building. Since 1902 the botanical garden of Bad Schandau has grown plants of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains and the Alps and of similar climates in Asia and North America. The rock of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains was laid down as thick sediment layers on the floor of a Cretaceous inland sea over a period of 7 million years.

Checked 14 October 2026 Bad Schandau's Nationalparkbahnhof is reached from Dresden by the S-Bahn and regional trains of the Verkehrsverbund Oberelbe (VVO). Check the town's own page before you go.

Bautzen

A round stone tower with a white and red crown at the left and the square tower of the Michaeliskirche with its green spire at the right, under a deep blue sky.

The Alte Wasserkunst and the tower of the Michaeliskirche. Photographed on 25 March 2018.

SchiDD Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

Bautzen was first mentioned in writing in 1002, as Budissin, by the chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg. The city says its Reichenturm, 56 m high, leans 1.41 m to the north-west. Since 1524 the Dom St. Petri (St. Peter's Cathedral) has been used jointly by the Roman Catholic and the Evangelical Lutheran church; the German heritage foundation lists it as a Simultankirche, a church shared by two confessions. The Alte Wasserkunst was built in its present form in 1558 by Wenzel Röhrscheidt the Elder.

Bautzen’s old town on its ridge, with a cathedral tower and a round tower above red roofs, seen through spring greenery.

The old town of Bautzen. Photographed on 1 May 2025.

Derbrauni Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0

The permanent exhibition of the Sorbian Museum (Serbski muzej) is devoted to the cultural history of the Sorbs from the Middle Ages to the present. The Sorbian National Ensemble was founded in 1952 at the initiative of the Domowina, the national umbrella organisation of the Lusatian Sorbs. According to the city, the signs on all streets and squares and at public institutions are bilingual, German and Sorbian. Today the former Bautzen II prison serves as the Gedenkstätte Bautzen (Bautzen Memorial).

Checked 14 October 2026 The city says Bautzen can be reached from Dresden by train on the Dresden–Görlitz line. Check the city's own page before you go.

Görlitz

The twin spires and green copper roof of the Peterskirche above a bridge over the river Neisse, under a clear blue sky.

The Peterskirche and the bridge over the Neisse. Photographed on 16 July 2011.

Schläsinger Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

Together with Zgorzelec, on the eastern side of the Neisse in Poland, Görlitz declared itself the Europastadt (European city) Görlitz/Zgorzelec in 1998. According to the city, Görlitz developed around 1220 in the area of today's Untermarkt, as a trading place for long-distance merchants. The city has about 4,000 individual monuments, largely restored, from Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Jugendstil and Gründerzeit.

A row of colourful gabled houses with arcades along the west side of the Untermarkt, a cobbled square, under a blue sky with white clouds.

The west side of the Untermarkt. Photographed on 4 October 2022.

Rolf Kranz Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

The Sonnenorgel (Sun Organ) of the Peterskirche dates from 1703, when the Evangelical town church of St. Peter and Paul received a new organ. The Heilig-Grab-Anlage (Holy Sepulchre complex) is a replica of the principal parts of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The Barockhaus was built in 1726–1729 as a residence and business house for the textile merchant Johann Christian Ameiß.

Checked 14 October 2026 Görlitz has been a film location since the 1950s, and more than 100 productions have been made there. The Altstadtstiftung (Old Town Foundation) supported the restoration of 1,572 private, municipal and church buildings. Görlitz is served from Dresden by the trilex regional trains RE 1 and RB 60, which continue to Zgorzelec. Check the city's own page before you go.

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