Adventures in lesser-known Germany: holiday stars are Dresden, Leipzig, Saxon country

Regular readers know the Bencard travel rule: milestone birthdays mean that the celebrant has total control of the year’s holiday schedule. Last year I drove our Italy-heavy itinerary. This year, my slightly younger husband turned us back to Germany. 

On his last milestone birthday he brought us to Bavaria to follow his family’s historical trail, focusing on the Renaissance and Reformation. This trip, we went further back in time, and further east. We based ourselves in Saxony and spent much of our time chasing the stories of the 10th and 11th centuries, particularly the lives of Ottonian rulers a remarkable man named Wiprecht von Groitzsch. A coming story will explain why.

Classical concerts and opera featured heavily, too, in this heartland of great composers. We mixed charming, atmospheric AirB&B’s with visits to 25Hours destination hotels. We gorged on white asparagus, the famous “spargel” over which the Germans obsess just coming into season. Between historic pilgrimages, musical indulgences, and sybaritic self-care, we stitched together a rich, resonant two-week journey. 

Thanks to extended holiday weekends at the start and finish of the break we travelled over 17 days, stopping at five places:

• 2 nights in Aachen (Mercure, city centre) 
• 6 nights in Dresden (“Weinblick” AirB&B, in the grounds of Schloss Albrechtsberg) 
• 4 nights in Berlin (25Hours Hotel Bikini Berlin) 
• 3 nights in Leipzig (“Palace by the Zoo” AirB&B in a grand 19th-century apartment on the edge of the historic centre) 
• 2 nights in Cologne (25Hours Hotel The Circle) 

We drove the entire route, crossing the Channel via Le Shuttle. This the raised eyebrows of many, but when we crunched the numbers it came out cheaper than flying and hiring a car. And it broadened our itinerary: the Cologne and Aachen stops wouldn’t have happened had we flown. Of course, we didn’t really need a car in city centres, but it was essential for wandering in the Saxon countryside.

Dresden: The Expected Star
As a fan of the German Baroque I had high expectations. Dresden is world-famous for the reconstruction of its 18th century town centre, flattened in World War II. It is one of the world’s greatest examples of heritage restoration. But I didn’t realise how rich the offerings would be beyond architecture. The city’s museums are stuffed with dazzling treasures and its opera house is gorgeous. 

The 19th century treated Dresden even better than the 18th, seeing whole neighbourhoods of gracious apartment blocks and mini-mansions pop up for the wealthy bourgeoise. Factories were disguised as fantasies from the Arabian nights and opulent shops were kitted out to serve the rich. Pfund’s dairy, entirely covered in Villeroy and Boch tiles, is the German equivalent of Harrod’s Food Halls or the tiled cafe at the Victoria and Albert museum. 

Dresden is the best place I’ve seen in Germany to get a picture of the rich, gracious, sophisticated world destroyed by the stupidity of 20th century wars. What’s been restored helps you imagine it, while what’s still derelict, missing or has been replaced with modern architecture reminds you of the pain just below the surface.

The super-rich of the 19th century built castles on the top of the bluffs looking over the river Elbe towards town, culminating in the ridiculously cute suburb of Loschwitz. Day trippers coming here could take a funicular up to a glamorous viewpoint to drink and dine.  A few schlosses down the ridge towards town was our Albrechtsberg, where we were lucky enough to be staying on the estate.. Once home to Prince Albert of Prussia and his morganatic wife Rosalie, who moved here to escape disapproval of their relationship, the estate still exudes faded grandeur and is a popular walking spot for locals. Our accommodation was in a large farmhouse amongst the estate’s side buildings. We had two bedrooms, a generous sitting room, a kitchen and a garden terrace with views through the trees to the Elbe. It was splendidly isolated, so on most days we adopted a rhythm of big lunches out and light suppers in. 

Our Dresden days included:

• Easter services in the historic Frauenkirche
• A hop-on-hop-off bus tour 
• A lavish afternoon in the Residenz palace museum 
• Tosca at the Semperoper 
• A leisurely wander through the military history museum
• Day trips to castles tied to Wiprecht and to Meissen 
• Several historic restaurants

Even with six nights, Dresden is the place I felt I needed more time. It’s certainly where I’d return first. There’s more to explore in the city’s museums and architecture, river cruises to be taken, and an entire wine region to be explored. In hindsight, we could have done Leipzig as a day trip and used this as the base for most of our holiday.

Berlin: Modern Power and Dark History
From Dresden, we drove north to Berlin, abandoning the car in the hotel car park for three days. Our base was the 25Hours Hotel Bikini Berlin. We loved our stay at this chain’s offerings in Copenhagen and Paris, and wanted to try more. I love their quirky design … usually re-purposing old commercial buildings … their ethos that works to deliver a boutique experience at large scale and the fact that no two are ever the same. This one has a jungle theme, tied to its location overlooking the Berlin Zoo. The rooftop houses the Monkey Bar and Neni, an Eastern-Mediterranean restaurant present in all of their hotels. 

The highlight of Berlin for me was our hotel room; we got an upgrade due to Piers’ frequent stayer status at Accor hotels, with which this chain is associated. The room had a freestanding bath and a cosy, round, upholstered reading pit perfect for a picnic dinner. 

The city itself has changed dramatically since my last visits in the early 20th century. What seemed then to be one big construction site has settled down. The new buildings are starting to age into place, there are fewer reminders of the GDR years and the old East German side of town has become super trendy, with most of the hottest bars and clubs here and old communist apartment blocks rehabbed as luxury condos.  

If Dresden is a dowager lady in cashmere in pearls heading off to the opera, Berlin is an affluent, 30-something professional who works hard and plays hard, the latter possibly in fetish gear. The locals enjoy their reputation for a bit of avant garde.

Our Berlin itinerary included:

• A hop-on-hop-off bus tour (a useful intro but frustrating in the amount of time spent sitting in traffic and the sparse commentary)
• A morning in the Neues Museum (Ironically, called “new” but home of ancient civilisations)
• A sobering guided tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp 
• The GDR Museum
• A stroll around Unter den Linden, the Reichstag and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe memorial 
• Two classical music evenings 
• A final flourish at Sanssouci, Frederick the Great’s Rococo masterpiece 

Leipzig: The other face of Saxony
Imagining Saxony’s second city as a character, I see a rebellious university student facing off to that Dresden grand dame across the fertile hills and valleys. He or she is likely to grow up to be a prosperous merchant driving hard deals, but university days bring a bit of rebellion and a taste for the new. This impression is doubtless shaped by the fact that we got caught up in a noisy but good-natured May Day march (Power to the People! Marx was Right! Anarchy!), but Leipzig immediately feels different from Dresden. Younger. Louder. More Diverse. A bit grubbier.

We stayed in a gracious 19th-century flat a short walk from the historic centre. Fittingly, given our Longborough Opera track record, we were just a block from Richard Wagner Platz. It had charm—lofty ceilings and abundant light—and was ideally located for exploring on foot. I wish we would have discovered Wagner’s restaurant and wine bar, just of the Platz, on our first night rather than our last. We would have been there more. The nearby zoo looked impressive, though it didn’t make our itinerary.

We really only had two sightseeing days here. The first was another day following Wiprecht’s trail and the second focused on Leipzig’s formidable musical heritage.

Cologne: Tomorrowland with Mezze 
We broke our return journey with a final two nights in Cologne, again at a 25Hours Hotel. This one occupies a circular mid-century modern office block, reimagined in a style that splits the difference between Disney’s Tomorrowland and an ‘80s arcade game. It was tremendous fun, and we appreciated the free parking.

To be honest, after two solid weeks of sightseeing our day exploring Cologne was a bit of a bust. We were too tired, too jaded, and had spectacularly bad luck. We walked half an hour to the edge of town to see the tomb of one of Piers’ many times great grandmothers, to find the church entirely closed for renovation. (Not something that came up on internet searches.) I returned to the main cathedral to see the bits that had been closed off on my earlier visit … at exactly the time they were closing it off again for confessions. We encountered the biggest crowds of the whole trip here and it made us grumpy. This is probably thanks to the combination of the booming river cruise industry and Cologne’s appeal to stag and hen weekends. The hotel’s Neni branch is so popular with locals we couldn’t get a reservation either night, and were too tired to go out in search of a traditional restaurant.  

So both the penultimate and final night of our holiday found us having some early cocktails in the rooftop Monkey Bar before ordering Neni mezze and picnicking on our bed while streaming the new Andor series. Given the hotel’s design, it was a perfect match.

What Comes Next
In the weeks ahead, I’ll share deeper dives into the themes that cut across this trip:

• How following in the footsteps of medieval ancestors like Wiprecht von Groitzsch took us down some non-traditional paths well off the beaten track
• An impressive range of classical music experiences that pushed the envelope, despite the historic composers
• Exploring difficult stories from Germany in the 20th century: hard, but important
• Food: the search for differentiation in the land of Schnitzel

For now, consider this your prologue. We went east in search of old stories. We found history, music, architectural splendour—and a few surprises that left me wanting more. Most of all, we found that Saxony deserves a spot on every serious traveller’s list.

Forget the cathedral. Beer, and a distinctive drinking culture, is the reason to head to Cologne

Sightseeing-wise, Cologne was a bust. I found the much-celebrated cathedral inferior to a long list of others*. The famous perfume is perfectly pleasant but I can buy scents I like better for a more reasonable price. Much of the city centre is remarkably ugly. Like many German cities, it was flattened by bombs in WWII, but post-war construction here veered towards modernism and away from re-creation. (In this, Cologne should be twinned with London.) For me, its star sight is a roman mosaic from an ancient dining room on display in a brutalist concrete museum now closed to the public but, fortunately, you can still see the floor through a window at the back and to the right of the cathedral.

The city was redeemed, however, by its beer. There's only one thing on tap here: Kölsch. It's pale, dry, crisp, and served pleasantly cold. It's all highly regulated, with ingredients limited, processes defined and the ability to call it Kölsch restricted to 50 km from Cologne. But that doesn't mean it's all the same. Many of Cologne's copious drinking establishments brew their own versions and aficionados claim different varieties have different fruity notes you don't often find in a German lagers. Anyone can wander into a Cologne pub and get a drink, but going out for an evening with a local guide brought us to the right places and helped us understand the distinctive drinking culture.

Kölsch is served in what, at first, may seem a laughably small glass. The tall, thin, 200 ml (6.8 oz) cylinder is called a Stange, and may strike you as an oversized shot glass. A thirsty drinker could down it in a few gulps. But here's the magic: it just keeps coming. 

You don't order a beer in Cologne. You enter the brew house , find your place, and a waiter (the Köbes) will come up with a circular tray with a tall handle in the middle (the Kranz), full of glasses, and give you one. Because this is really the only thing you drink in Cologne. When your glass is empty, your lovely Köbes is at your elbow with another. And he will be there, again and again, until you place your beer mat on top of your glass to stop the flow. While the initial 200 ml won't go to your head, you can imagine how constant top ups across the evening could do damage to your equilibrium and your wallet. Fortunately, all the evening’s drinking was covered by the excursion price, no matter when or if we decided to deploy our bar mats. This made the price better value for money for some than others.

While our guide on the day’s earlier walking tour (included in the basic cruise price) had focused understandably on history and architecture, the evening’s guide delved deeper into the people and culture. The locals, it turns out, are quite an anarchic bunch. Fiercely independent, fond of parties, lovers of food and drink and … according to our Cologne-born guide … have the best sense of humour in Germany. I couldn't help remembering the fun-loving the Osakans and their prickly relationship with Tokyo. 

Predominantly Catholic, Cologne was absorbed into the staunchly Protestant Prussian kingdom after the Napoleonic era and it was never a comfortable fit. Though there are statues of Prussian kings dotted around the place, they’re treated with mocking contempt. A pre-Lenten Carnival is the party of the year, characterised by Venetian levels of costume, drinking and mayhem. Naturally, the locals kick off the party under a statue of Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III, a devout Protestant who hated the whole Carnival idea and tried to shut it down.

We started our evening at the Brauerei zur Malzmühle across the street from the Heumarkt, the enormous town square on which that king’s equestrian statue prances. The Schwartz family have been brewing and hosting visitors here for 160 years, and they’re now one of the few establishments still brewing on site in the city centre. The decor is traditional but restrained 19th century German beer hall, with lots of stained glass, wood, festoons of dried hops and memorabilia from carnivals past.

In the best tradition of pub crawls, we lined our stomach here with a hearty dinner to better absorb the alcohol of the evening. Local delicacies here mean pork. Our group shared platters of pork knuckle, sauerbraten, smoked sausage, black pudding, and even a pork tartare. It was both delicious and a bold statement of faith in the freshness and purity of the local meat. (I suspect serving raw pork would be illegal in England, despite the quality of our pork industry.) On the side came fried potatoes and a lightly pickled sauerkraut that bore no resemblance to the cheek-puckering stuff sold in groceries. Even professed sauerkraut haters tried it and found it tasty. Of other vegetables, there was no sign and,  in the local mind, no need. It wasn’t the first time it occurred to me that a vegetarian might starve to death in Germany, and devout Jews and Muslims would be eating from a very reduced menu. My husband, meanwhile, was nearing a coma of transcendent happiness with so many interpretations of his favourite protein in one place.

After a stroll across the Heumarkt to let the food settle, we landed at the Pffafen Brauerei on the square’s northeast corner. You can’t miss the dignified, salmon-pink Baroque building with its ornate wrought iron pub sign, but it’s the crazy interiors that make this place memorable. There’s stained glass here, too, but more abundant and more modern, particularly in the multi-story entrance hall with its enormous chandelier that feels a bit like a cathedral of beer. Push in to the long, narrow building and you’ll be dazzled by a profusion of woodcarving. Local artists have been adding to the place since the current brewer took it over in the 1970s. There are carnival goers, cherubs, monks (pfaffen in the local dialect), hops and foliage. Much is traditionally decorative, but some gets quirky, with heads springing from barrels, figures holding up tables and mischievous faces looking around corners. Here’s Cologne’s anarchic sense of humour at work. 

While the brewers here, Päffgen, supply a variety of brew houses across the city, this is the only one where it comes straight from the wooden barrels. Which, experts tell me, makes a difference. I found their version slightly hoppier and heavier than the Malzmühle Kölsch, but I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference in a blind taste test.

A lane called the Saltzgass leads east from the corner, down a hill towards the Rhine. Its name, “salt alley” gives a nod to a precious commodity mined in Germany and shipped up and down the Rhine since Roman times. The street is all restaurants and brew houses now, our last stop dominating the middle stretch.

Bierhaus en d’r Salzgass is in a historic former brewery dating back 400 years. Brewing stopped here in 1907 and the place changed hands as a restaurant multiple times through the 20th century, but it saw new owners and a major renovation in early 2003. The beer was the same Päffgen we’d just left at Pffafen, just not out of a barrel. No, I couldn’t tell the difference. But that didn’t matter, because it’s the interiors that made this place. Polished, dark wood abounds: columns, panelling, an impressive central bar soaring two stories. In fact, the whole central room is double height, with a second story of revellers able to look over their wrought iron balustrades onto the drinkers below. Another festive establishment with the ambiance of a cathedral. I have a feeling that’s no coincidence in this city.

We Brits could have happily explored one or two more places, but our American fellow travellers were lagging and quick to raise their beer mats. We adjourned to the ship's bar and continued our celebrations there. No Germanic woodcarving, and Kölsch only in bottles that ... gasp ... exceeded 200 ml. We coped.

At 5pm that day, I'd considered Cologne a wasted stop on the cruise. By 11pm I was wondering if we could come back for the Christmas Market or Carnival. That's the difference some good local insight can make. Prost!

*To be fair, because it was the week before Easter the cathedral's ambulatory ... that horseshoe of chapels ringing the high altar ... wasn't open. Most of the cathedral's treasures are back there. If the building has any chance of competing with places like Chartres, Milan or Canterbury, you need to see it outside of Holy Week.