Dresden, verdict by verdict

Dresden is a baroque city rebuilt from ash, and the rebuild is itself the story: the Frauenkirche back on its dome after sixty years, the Zwinger and the royal palace around a courtyard of fountains, the Semperoper and the Green Vault jewel rooms along the Elbe. The art haul is serious, from the Old Masters to the porcelain, and a ferry upriver to Pillnitz plus the bars across the water in Neustadt fill out a weekend that fills itself.

The trade-off is that the reconstructed Altstadt can feel like a museum quarter that empties at night, beautiful but slightly stage-set, and the city's looks concentrate in a small radius while the postwar suburbs stay plain. Nightlife exists over the river but Dresden is no Berlin, and travelers whose German trip is castle-and-village rather than museums may find the galleries pile up. Winters run cold and grey.

Two days covers the city well, one for the Altstadt core and one for the museums and the Elbe meadows, and the best argument for a third is Saxon Switzerland, a sandstone-cliff park forty minutes away, or Meissen downriver. May to October brings Elbe weather and beer gardens, December the Striezelmarkt, Germany's oldest Christmas market. The Altstadt walks flat, trams cover everything else, and the airport links by S-Bahn in about twenty minutes.