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

The story of Meissen porcelain actually began high above Old Meissen. Towering over the Elbe River, this 15th-century castle is Germany's first truly residential one, a complete break with the earlier style of fortified bastions. In the central Schutzhof, a typical Gothic courtyard protected on three sides by high rough-stone walls, is an exterior spiral staircase, the Wendelstein, a masterpiece of early masonry hewn in 1525 from a single massive stone block. The ceilings of the castle halls are richly decorated, although many date only from a restoration in 1870. Adjacent to the castle is an early Gothic cathedral. It's a bit of a climb up Burgstrasse and Amtsstrasse to the castle, but a bus runs regularly up the hill from the Marktplatz.

Near the Frauenkirche, the Altes Brauhaus dates to 1460 and is graced by a Renaissance gable. It now houses city offices.

The city's medieval past is recounted in the museum of this former monastery.

A set of porcelain bells at the late-Gothic Frauenkirche, on the central Marktplatz, was the first of its kind anywhere when installed in 1929.

Near the porcelain works, this church holds the largest set of porcelain figures ever crafted (8¼ feet tall) as well as the remains of early Gothic frescoes.

Outgrowing its castle workshop in the mid-19th century, today's porcelain factory is on the southern outskirts of town. One of its buildings has a demonstration workshop and a museum whose Meissen collection rivals that of Dresden's Porzellansammlung.