A Complete Guide to Brühl’s Terrace, Dresden, the Balcony of Europe

Brühl’s Terrace, or Brühlsche Terrasse, in Dresden runs about 500 metres along the Elbe, from the Augustus Bridge to the gap where the Carola Bridge stood before it partly collapsed in September 2024. It has been a fortress wall, a minister’s private garden and a public promenade, in that order, and its nickname, the “Balcony of Europe,” dates to the early 19th century. We walked it one early morning, and this guide follows that route, with the history behind each stop.

From Fortress to Promenade

The terrace began as part of Dresden’s city fortifications, rebuilt after the Schmalkaldic War of 1546 and 1547. In 1737 Count Heinrich von Brühl, minister to Elector Frederick Augustus II, began building a palace here with a gallery, a library and gardens, and in 1747 the elector gave him the whole terrace. In 1814, after the Saxon defeat at the Battle of Leipzig, the Russian military governor ordered it opened to the public. The ensemble was destroyed in the bombing of February 1945 and has since been rebuilt.

From this high point you can see across the Elbe to Neustadt, the New Town, with the Saxon State Ministry of Finance and the Saxon State Chancellery on the far bank.

Artisans

We strolled along the cobblestones and stopped to look at the artists selling their wares along the terrace. It was early morning and some were still setting up. There was a lot of handmade art, each piece one of a kind, and the artists stood at their easels with paints, ready to make more.

Dresden Academy of Fine Arts

It was fitting to see so many artists out and about, because the terrace is also home to the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. The academy was founded in 1764 and became a workplace and training ground for a number of influential European artists, but the building you see today, topped with its glass dome known as the “Lemon Squeezer,” was designed by Constantin Lipsius and built between 1887 and 1894.

On the side facing the Elbe, the names Pheidias, Iktinos, Praxiteles, Polykleitos, Lysippos, Erwin von Steinbach, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Dürer are inscribed on the wall, and on the other side is the motto “DEM VATERLAND ZU ZIER UND EHR” (“For the Honour and Adornment of the Fatherland”). Instead of an angel, the golden figure on the dome is Pheme, known to the Romans as Fama, the personification of fame and renown, sculpted by the Dresden artist Robert Henze, which makes her a fitting reference for artists. The Kunsthalle beneath the dome opens only for special exhibitions, so check what is on before you go.

Terraces on the Terrace

There were so many bright, colourful cafés along the terraces where you could sit down to a light lunch or a coffee and look out over the blue water of the Elbe. I stopped for a minute beneath the rows of manicured trees at the end of the terrace, where the towers around the square below come into view, and the spot gives a wide view of the buildings around the city.

One of my favourite things about travelling is the cheesy tourist trap, and some cities are full of them. In Dresden there were little boat bikes, where the employee would pedal their tours. The boats were so cute, though. I was disappointed we had already booked our tickets, because I would have loved to give this poor kid some business.

Bronze Medallions

Near the top of the stairs down to Münzgasse, bronze medallions are set into the stones around a metal sphere. This is the Planetendenkmal, or Planet Monument, made in 1988 by the Dresden sculptor Vinzenz Wanitschke. The medallions are named for the sun, the moon and the planets, recalling the bastions of Dresden’s old fortifications, and each carries a saying that is reportedly attributed to Augustus the Strong. The one we read translated as “a bad trade, where no one wins,” and I wish I knew more about the context, but alas, I do not.

Ernst Rietschel

As we left the terrace to catch our boat, we passed the monument by Johannes Schilling to Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel, one of Saxony’s leading sculptors. Rietschel studied under Christian Daniel Rauch in Berlin and spent 1827 and 1828 in Rome. When he returned to Saxony, a colossal statue of King Frederick Augustus brought him to public notice, and he was elected to the Dresden academy and, in 1832, to its professorship of sculpture. He was best known for portrait statues of eminent men, treated with idealism and dramatic vigour, among them Goethe and Schiller in Weimar and Carl Maria von Weber for Dresden. It seems fitting that he now has a monument of his own here, near the academy where he taught.

The Four Times of Day

We walked down the stairs into Schlossplatz and stopped to admire the four large bronze groups flanking the stairway, which represent Morning, Noon, Evening and Night. They are also by Schilling; the original sandstone versions went to Chemnitz in 1898, and the stairs themselves were built by Gottlob Friedrich Thormeyer after the terrace opened to the public in 1814. It is easy to picture the city these figures looked over, with revellers in the streets, painters improving their craft, merchants trading on the shore, and electors and kings ruling Saxony from the castle across the square. The figures seem to say that time cannot be stopped and everything changes, just like the city itself.

Taken in order, the terrace is a short walk with a long history: a fortress wall, a minister’s garden and, since 1814, a public promenade, rebuilt after 1945. It is free to walk, and the old fortress casemates beneath it now hold the Festung Xperience, a multimedia show reached by lift from the terrace (hours and ticket prices are worth confirming before you go). Go early, as we did, while the artists are still setting up.

Happy Travels, Adventurers