Dessau-Rosslau Germany Saxony-Anhalt
Frequently Asked Questions
Along the Elbe, edged with floodplain meadows, in this twin town in Saxony-Anhalt. The Bauhaus building and the town-centre museum are reachable from the landing stage; the Garden Realm, by contrast, requires transport.
Because two utopias were born here, and both can be visited in a single call. The first dates from the 18th century: an enlightened prince turned his principality into a garden. The second, from the 1920s: the Bauhaus reinvented how the modern world is built.
The main building designed by Walter Gropius, home of the school from 1925 to 1932: glass curtain walls, interlocking white volumes, vertical lettering on the facade. A UNESCO World Heritage site, it can be visited independently or on a guided tour, workshops, stage and canteen with its original stools included.
The cubic villas where the school's masters lived, fifteen minutes' walk from the main building among the pines: Kandinsky, Klee, Feininger. Standing in the room where Klee and Kandinsky discussed colour as neighbours gives art lovers a particular thrill.
Yes, a new museum opened in 2019 in the town centre completes the circuit: tubular chairs, lamps, weavings and archives converse inside a glass case, within one of the world's most important collections devoted to the school.
The work of Prince Leopold III Friedrich Franz of Anhalt-Dessau, who covered his principality with parks, palaces, temples and planted dykes, convinced that beauty could educate. UNESCO-listed, it is one of the earliest and largest English landscape parks in continental Europe.
By coach or taxi: the park is about twenty minutes' drive away, and shore excursions go there. Allow at least two hours on site, as the paths lead from one surprise to the next, right up to a startling artificial volcano the prince had spew flame and smoke during grand festivities.
Yes, and it is the most pleasant way to see the park: traditional punts glide along the canals, poled between willows and classical temples reflected in the water. You can also walk among the lakes, bridges and neoclassical follies.
The river crosses the Middle Elbe Biosphere Reserve, one of the richest floodplain areas in central Europe: riverine forest, oxbow lakes, meadows where roe deer graze, beavers at work in the inlets. Black storks and kites frequent the area.
Yes, and it is a good way to fill two free hours. The Elbe cycle route, flat and well signed, runs alongside these landscapes of water and willow. A rental turns idle time into an immersion in the floodplain countryside.
