8 Best Sights in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, Germany

The city's leading art gallery is modernist minimalism incarnate, set in a huge concrete cube encased in green glass in the middle of Sachsenplatz Square. The museum's collection of more than 2,700 paintings and sculptures represents everything from the German Middle Ages to the modern Neue Leipziger Schule. Especially notable are the collections focusing on Lucas Cranach the Elder and Caspar David Friedrich. Be sure to start at the top and work your way down. Don't miss Max Klinger's Beethoven as Zeus statue.

Dresden's magnificent Baroque showpiece is entered by way of the mighty Kronentor (Crown Gate), underneath the crown of Poland, off Ostra-Allee. It contains three different museums.

Augustus the Strong hired a small army of artists and artisans to create a "pleasure ground" worthy of the Saxon court on the site of the former bailey, part of the city fortifications. The artisans worked under the direction of the architect Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, who came reluctantly out of retirement to design what would be his greatest work, begun in 1707 and completed in 1728. Completely enclosing a central courtyard filled with lawns, pools, and fountains, the complex is made up of six linked pavilions, one of which boasts a carillon of Meissen bells, hence its name: Glockenspielpavillon.

The Zwinger is quite a scene—a riot of garlands, nymphs, and other elaborate ornamentation and sculpture. Wide staircases beckon to galleried walks and to the romantic Nymphenbad, a coyly hidden courtyard where statues of nude women perch in alcoves to protect themselves from a fountain that spits unexpectedly. The Zwinger once had an open view of the riverbank, but the Semper Opera House now occupies that side. Stand in the center of this quiet oasis, where the city's roar is kept at bay by the outer wings of the structure. Normal people were allowed onto the balcony and could watch all of the raucous festivities

The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, in the northwestern corner of the complex, was built to house portions of the royal art collections. Among the priceless paintings are works by Dürer, Holbein, Jan Van Eyck, Rembrandt, Rubens, van Dyck, Hals, Vermeer, Raphael, Titian, Giorgione, Veronese, Velázquez, Murillo, Canaletto, and Watteau. On the wall of the entrance archway you'll see an inscription in Russian, one of the few amusing reminders of World War II in Dresden. It rhymes in Russian: "Museum checked. No mines. Chanutin did the checking." Chanutin, presumably, was the Russian soldier responsible for checking one of Germany's greatest art galleries for anything more explosive than a Rubens nude. The highlight of the collection is Raphael's Sistine Madonna, whose mournful look is slightly less famous than the two cherubs who were added by Raphael after the painting was completed, in order to fill an empty space at the bottom.

Stretching from the curved gallery that adjoins the Glockenspielpavillon to the long gallery on the east side, this collection of the Porzellansammlung is considered one of the best of its kind in the world. The focus, naturally, is on Dresden and Meissen china, but there are also outstanding examples of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean porcelain.

Holding medieval and Renaissance suits of armor and weapons, the Rüstkammer also has a branch in the Residenzschloss.

Named after Saxony's King Albert, who between 1884 and 1887 converted a royal arsenal into a suitable setting for the treasures he and his forebears had collected, this massive, imperial-style building houses one of the world's great galleries featuring works from the romantic period to the modern. The Galerie Neue Meister (New Masters Gallery) has an extensive collection ranging from Caspar David Friedrich and Gauguin to Ernst Kirchner and Georg Baselitz.

When Walter Gropius founded the Staatliches Bauhaus (Bauhaus design school) in Weimar, it quickly became Germany's most influential and avant-garde design school, and it ushered in the era of modern architecture and design just before the start of World War II. Weimar's Bauhaus Museum is a modest, yet superb collection of the works of Gropius, Johannes Itten, and Henry van de Velde.  The emphasis is on the early phase of the Bauhaus and displays the world's oldest collection of Bauhaus work. The Bauhaus is still alive today, and the museum tells the story of how our contemporary visions of our living environment have evolved and how they continue to develop.

This museum showcases 2,000 years of works from Leipzig's and eastern Germany's proud tradition of handicrafts, such as exquisite porcelain, fine tapestry art, and modern Bauhaus design.

The city is proud of eastern Germany's first museum exclusively devoted to contemporary art. The building, dating from 1869, houses an outstanding international collection of Realist, Impressionist, and art nouveau works. Early modernisim is at home in Weimar, and the works of the Weimar School of Painting and the avant-garde promoted by Harry Graf Kessler, from Claude Monet to Max Beckmann, help explain the contradictory and glamorous period at the end of the 19th century. In addition, it regularly presents international modern-art exhibitions.

Composer Richard Wagner gets his due at this museum, which has the most comprehensive exhibition on Wagner's life and work outside Bayreuth. Monthly concerts take place in the old Teezimmer (tearoom), a hall with wonderfully restored French wallpaper. The Erard piano, dating from the late 19th century, is occasionally rolled out.

The oldest half-timber house in Quedlinburg, built about 1310, is now a museum to half-timbered construction techniques and architecture.