Anchor point no. 17 of the Via Romantika (Historic Cities)
Maybe the Romantic poet Heinrich von Kleist was right to say: “Dresden has a great festive location, at the centre of the Elbe elevations that surround it in a distance as if they wouldn’t dare to approach out of respect. Suddenly, the stream leaves the right shore and quickly turns towards Dresden in order to give its favourite a kiss.” The “Saxon Sun King” Augustus the Strong wanted to create a Venice at the Elbe, the river as Canale Grande. He delighted today’s historic town with stately baroque buildings and created “the new town of the king near Dresden” on the opposite shore. But as a passionate collector and catalyst for artistic masterpieces he rather contributed to Dresden’s development into the “Florence at the Elbe” where magnificent architecture and outstanding art collections are combined in the most beautiful of ways until this day. The author Erich Kästner who was born in Dresden said: “If it should be true that I know not only what is bad and ugly but also what is beautiful, I owe this ability to the lucky chance of being born in Dresden.” No wonder that Dresden was a, if not the meeting place for Romantics. Not many stayed long but almost all of them came back.
