Details: Where to go and what to know in Dresden
And then I saw it, rising from the southern bank of the river: a crescent of elegant Baroque palaces, churches, theaters, clock towers and gateways, belted at the waist by a riverside promenade studded with statues. The entire architectural ensemble, which the Electors of Saxony, ruling from Dresden for centuries, had built to impress, was bathed in floodlight so intense that the tallest spires stood out like giant inverted icicles against the ink-black sky.
With no time to spare, I found my seat in the Frauenkirche, the imposing cathedral at the center of the recently restored old city, just as the choir and orchestra launched into the Christmas Oratorio of Johann Sebastian Bach, the composer from Leipzig, 65 miles to the west, who had once presented his work in this church himself. As his music filled the sanctuary, it wasn’t hard to imagine that he, too, might have craned his neck to follow a joyful trumpet note as it bounced up into the church’s massive dome and to the illuminated star glowing atop it, visible throughout the city on this December night.
I would see that same multi-pointed Moravian star in many sizes and colors during a 72-hour stay in the city last year during the Advent season. At this time of year, which begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve, the theater and Dresden’s famous Semper Opera sell out, candles (mostly electric these days) light up countless windows, and people saunter through the Christmas markets that pop up at seemingly every major crossroads and train station.
Makeshift villages of plywood decorated with bright lights, painted signs and evergreens, the markets are found in towns and cities throughout Germany and Central Europe, but the main market of Dresden, the Striezelmarkt, dating from 1434, is certainly one of the oldest. The city is also uniquely situated near the Erzgebirge, or Ore Mountains, a remote region near the Czech border whose residents switched to woodcarving when the mines played out a hundred years ago, and who today produce high-end Christmas decorations that are sold throughout Germany and at such U.S. outlets as Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman.
According to Torsten Rex, a Dresden native who works in the city tourist office, the best time to sample the lively scene on the streets is at night. “The real atmosphere and the spirit of the market you will only get after dark,” he says. Not a problem, I realize, since dusk arrives at 4 p.m. here during the winter.
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