Dresden Castle

The residence of the rulers of Saxony for more than four centuries, Dresden Castle, or Residenzschloss, is one of the oldest buildings in the city and the historic seat of the Wettin electors and kings. Its restoration after wartime destruction is among the great cultural projects of reunified Germany.

Begun in the Renaissance and repeatedly enlarged, the palace blends styles from Gothic through Renaissance to baroque, with a sgraffito-decorated courtyard and the tall Hausmannsturm tower offering views over the old town. It was the centre of court life under Augustus the Strong and his successors, whose passion for collecting filled it with treasures.

Today it functions as a museum complex. Its greatest attraction is the Grünes Gewölbe, the Green Vault, a dazzling treasury of goldsmith work, jewels, ivory and precious objects displayed in reconstructed baroque rooms, widely regarded as one of the richest such collections in Europe. The castle also holds the coin cabinet, the print collection, the armoury with its Turkish chamber, and the Fürstenzug view over the courtyard.

Left a burnt-out shell after the firebombing of February 1945, the castle stood ruined for decades under the GDR before a long reconstruction gradually returned it to use from the 1980s onward, a process still being completed. Standing between the Catholic court church, the Semperoper and the Zwinger, it lies at the very heart of Dresden's baroque centre. A combined ticket covers most of the collections, and timed entry applies to the famous historic Green Vault. The sgraffito-decorated courtyard and the reconstructed state apartments give a vivid sense of the ceremony that once filled the electoral court. For lovers of decorative arts and princely splendour, it is the single richest destination in the city.