The guide
Dresden
Christmas trip · Dresden, Germany
The entrance to the Dresdner Striezelmarkt on the Altmarkt, beneath the great Christmas tree.
Getting there
Jess’s loop: Nuremberg → Dresden — the loop turns north-east across Germany, a few hours by ICE/IC. Onwards: Dresden → Prague, down the Elbe valley.
From London: London → Dresden — Eurostar to Brussels, then ICE trains on across Germany: roughly 9 hours via Brussels and Frankfurt, so settle in with a book and a flask.
Famous for
Dresden is the city that gave Christmas its most famous cake. The Dresdner Stollen — a rich, buttery fruit loaf snowed under icing sugar — has been baked here for centuries, and the city's great market is named after it: Striezel was the old local word for the loaf. The Striezelmarkt has filled the Altmarkt since 1434 — one of Germany's oldest Christmas markets — watched over by the Frauenkirche, flattened in 1945 and rebuilt stone by stone, its dark original blocks still speckled through the golden new walls.
The Frauenkirche dome — rebuilt stone by stone and reopened in 2005.
Where to eat
- Coselpalais — grand café beside the Frauenkirche (An der Frauenkirche 12); come for the Original Dresdner Eierschecke, the city's beloved three-layer cheesecake.
- Pfunds Molkerei — the world's most beautiful dairy shop (officially — it's Guinness-certified): hand-painted tiles floor to ceiling, and an upstairs café for cheese, buttermilk and cake; Tram 11 to Bautzner Straße.
- Kastenmeiers — the special-occasion dinner, in the Taschenbergpalais a few steps from the market: gourmet seafood, evenings only — book ahead.
- Stollen by the Altmarkt — the cafés around the market do a roaring trade in Christstollen; Jess's market lunch was a thick slice with hot chocolate, eaten slowly while the stalls hummed.
What to do
- The Striezelmarkt & its turning pyramid — red-and-white stalls, nutcrackers and carved wooden angels, and the great tiered Christmas pyramid slowly revolving at the centre.
- The giant stollen ceremony — for the Stollen Festival, on a Saturday in Advent, Dresden's bakers parade a giant stollen through the old town, then slice it up for charity.
- Frauenkirche — climb the dome for the view over the Elbe, then hunt for the dark old stones in the rebuilt walls.
- Brühl Terrace — the "Balcony of Europe", a promenade high above the river; at dusk the whole old town turns gold.
- Zoo Dresden — one of Germany's oldest zoos (founded 1861), tucked against the Großer Garten: giraffes, orangutans and eucalyptus-shaded koalas.
- An Elbe riverside stroll — follow the water below the terrace while the swans drift past.
A koala at Zoo Dresden — champion napper.
The old town lights up across the Elbe from the Brühl Terrace.
Jess's favourite
The koalas at Zoo Dresden — folded asleep into the forks of the gum trees, entirely untroubled by the festive rush
A junior keeper's heroes. Arrive in the morning and you may catch one awake and munching; by lunchtime, professional napping resumes.
Good to know: The Striezelmarkt runs from late November to Christmas Eve (24 December) — the stalls pack away before Christmas Day, so don't save Dresden for the 25th. Real Dresdner Stollen keeps beautifully and improves for weeks, so buy your take-home loaves near the end of the trip. The Altmarkt and the Frauenkirche are a 10-minute walk apart, and the Hauptbahnhof is a short tram ride south — handy with a cake-heavy rucksack.
Jess plans her trips the week before, but trains have a mind of their own. Routes, times and fares in these guides were checked at the time of writing — engineering works, timetable changes and last-minute alterations can still happen. Please check your journey before you travel (National Rail Enquiries or the Trainline app) — and if a replacement bus sneaks in, we hope the day makes up for it.
Read Jess's diary of the day ↓
Jess's Christmas Adventures · Diary No. 3
Dresden: Koalas, Stollen, and a Cake Too Big to Carry Home
Christmas trip·Dresden, Germany
I woke up at 5:30am, as always — the penguins are in my head at that hour, forming an orderly queue. But this is stop three of my week off, and my notebook is filling up faster than my camera roll. So I lay there for exactly one minute, feeling rather pleased with myself. Then the thought of the zoo got me up. Somebody else's zoo — third one this week.
The train out of Nuremberg rolled north-east through winter fields for a few hours — bare trees, frost on the hedgerows, little villages with the chimneys smoking. Flask of tea, a squashed sandwich, and my notebook — Barnaby's dictation is filling page after page, and there's a hedgehog in it now who is braver than he thinks he is. Off the train and straight across the city, then: I had a zoo to be at by opening time.
The zoo
Zoo Dresden tucks itself against the Großer Garten, the city's great green park, and it has been there since 1861 — one of Germany's oldest zoos, a grand old lady of a place. I arrived at keepers' hour, when the paths are empty and the animals are having their breakfast. I did my rounds like I was on shift: giraffes unfolding themselves like deckchairs, orangutans watching me with the deep suspicion of colleagues who have spotted a skiver. And then the koalas. Dresden keeps koalas — proper eucalyptus-snoozing koalas, each folded into the fork of a gum tree like a small grey comma. Koalas sleep most of the day, every day, entirely without guilt. I have never felt so professionally understood.
Lunch
By midday my stomach was conducting rounds of its own, so I walked into the old town and found a little café off the Altmarkt — dark wood, fogged windows, a waitress who took one look at my face and said "Stollen?" the way other people say "the usual?". So lunch was my first proper slice of Dresdner Christstollen: rich, buttery, heavy with fruit, snowed under icing sugar, plus a hot chocolate to keep it company. I ate slowly, wrote up two pages of Barnaby's dictation while the stollen lasted, and tried very hard not to order a second slice. Tried.
The market
Full of stollen and good intentions, I set off for the market — and took my mandatory wrong turn, which delivered me onto the Brühl Terrace, the "Balcony of Europe", high above the Elbe with the golden city behind me and the river sliding past below. The wrong turn, as always, was the best planning I did all day.
Then the Striezelmarkt, filling the Altmarkt as it has since 1434 — Germany's oldest Christmas market. Rows of red-and-white striped stalls sell carved wooden angels, nutcrackers with very serious faces, and little Pflaumentoffel — chimney-sweep boys made out of dried plums, standing barely taller than my thumb. They're lucky charms. I bought one and named him Gerald, which nobody asked me to do. In the middle of the square the great Christmas pyramid slowly turns — tier upon tier of carved shepherds, angels and forest animals, rotating gently, powered by nothing but the warmth of the lights below. And at the Stollenfest they bake a giant stollen, parade it through the streets and cut it so everyone gets a piece. I bought a modest loaf to take home, which still weighed about as much as a small penguin.
Home
The light went early, the way it does at this time of year, and I walked back along the terrace toward the station as the Elbe turned dark. Below me the swans were drifting in loose, unhurried loops, white against black water, completely unbothered by the cold. Carved animals turning above the market, real ones drifting below it. I work with animals that squawk, stampede and steal each other's breakfast, so a creature whose whole evening plan is float and look graceful has my deepest professional respect. Tomorrow the EuroCity takes me down this same river — the line hugs the Elbe valley the whole way to Prague, sandstone cliffs rising out of the mist, or so the man in the café promised me. Two more zoos in the notebook still to come. Tired feet, cold nose, rucksack smelling of stollen. Happy.
Barnaby's text“A cake too big for one person, and you thought of sharing it. That is a keeper's habit, Jess: we split the last apple, we pass round the best story. You did exactly right.”
— Jess
↑ Back to the Dresden guide