A Trip from Berlin to Dresden is actually crossing the border to another German state. From the federal states of Berlin and Brandenburg, we arrive at the State of Saxony (Sachsen, in German) the capital of which is Dresden. The landscape remains more or less the same, vast planes. However, history is changing. The kings of Prussia get out of the scene, Saxon kings get in. (click here for more history).
Dresden city is nicknamed "Florence of the Elbe" for its great art collections, monumental buildings and river Elbe, which crosses it. Dresden is a German national center of science and research and of industry, but the focus is on Saxon tourism.
Visitors who would like to stay there more than a day may enjoy its famous cultural institutions: The Saxon State Opera (Saechsigen Staatsoper) and the Cross choir (Kreuzchor).
However, all the recommended sites to visit are on one route, which is rather short, within the inner ring road of the old town (Altstadt ring) on the left bank of the river Elbe. This is a great advantage to tourists. They can see them all in half a day, and return to Berlin(click here to start the route). There are other sites located outside the track, which are listed here separately.
More than half a million people live in Dresden. Greater Dresden has a quarter million more. This is the fourth largest metropolis in Germany, after Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.
In winter, Dresden is colder than the rest of Germany, and in summer it's warmer. January average temperature is minus 2 degrees, but sometimes temperatures fall to minus 20-10 degrees. Rains fall all over the year in much bigger amounts than in Berlin.
