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Festung Dresden – history
Beneath the Brühlsche Terrasse, the “Balcony of Europe”, lie the remains of Dresden's old town fortifications. From 1546 Duke Maurice of Saxony had Dresden built up into a bastioned fortress on the Italian model. From 1809 the ramparts were demolished – only here on the banks of the Elbe did walls, vaults and casemates survive, and today you can visit them underground.
Ziegeltor and Jungfernbastei
The Ziegeltor was built around 1550 and is the last surviving town gate of Dresden; the bridge over the former moat is considered the oldest stone bridge in the city. Around 1553 a small bastion was added, which at the end of the 16th century was expanded into the Jungfernbastei, the Maiden's Bastion. Later a pleasure house stood on it, and finally a Neoclassical belvedere from 1814.
Böttger's porcelain laboratory
In a laboratory at the Jungfernbastei, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and Johann Friedrich Böttger worked on a great secret. Around 1707/1708 they achieved the breakthrough here to the first European hard-paste porcelain – Schlösserland Sachsen gives the date as 15 January 1708. From this came Meissen porcelain.
Rediscovery and museum
From 1965 archaeologists gradually uncovered the buried structures, and in 1992 the Museum Festung Dresden opened. On 30 November 2019 it reopened as the “Festung Xperience”: since then, 360-degree projections and 3D sound in the vaults have told of festivities, sieges and disasters – ideal on a rainy day, too.
Links to other places
Böttger's path leads through half of Saxony: in 1706 and 1707 he was held on the Festung Königstein, after that he worked in Dresden's Jungfernbastei, and from 1710 porcelain was made at the Albrechtsburg in Meissen. Just a few steps away, the Zwinger shows a similar multimedia experience, the “Zwinger Xperience”.
Matching hikes
- Sächsischer Weinwanderweg, Etappe 1: Pirna nach Dresden-Pillnitz
- Von Pillnitz über Borsberg und Triebenberg
As of: 09/2026
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