Photo: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A self-guided audio walk through Dresden's old centre, destroyed in the raids of February 1945 and rebuilt over the decades since. It starts at the Kreuzkirche, home of the Kreuzchor, and the Altmarkt, where each Advent the Striezelmarkt is held under a charter of 1434, named for the Striezel, the bread now called the Dresden Christstollen; it tells of the Pflaumentoffel, the prune chimney sweep, and the stollen of about eighteen hundred kilograms baked for Augustus the Strong in 1730. Past the Kulturpalast it goes to the Neumarkt and the Johanneum, the Frauenkirche, rebuilt with nearly 4,000 recovered stones and reconsecrated in 2005, and Brühl's Terrace above the Elbe; then the porcelain Fürstenzug and the Stallhof, the Residenzschloss and the Butter Letter that let Dresden's stollen be made with butter, the Hofkirche, the Semperoper and the Zwinger. The markets run in Advent; the squares, churches and their stories are there all year.
11 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 221 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 105 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
The Kreuzkirche, The Altmarkt, The Kulturpalast.
The Neumarkt and the Johanneum, The Frauenkirche, Brühl's Terrace.
The Fürstenzug and the Stallhof, The Residenzschloss, The Hofkirche, Theaterplatz and the Semperoper, The Zwinger.
Home each Advent of the Striezelmarkt, chartered in 1434, and the place where the Striezel, the Dresden Christstollen, gave the market its name.
George Bähr's sandstone church, collapsed in 1945 and reconsecrated in 2005, its orb and cross made in London and given by the people of Britain.
A 102-metre procession of the Wettin rulers in about 23,000 Meissen porcelain tiles, fronting the Renaissance tournament court.
The seat of Saxony's rulers from 1485, and the story of the papal Butter Letter that turned a fasting bread into the Dresden stollen.
Gottfried Semper's second opera house, burned out in 1945 and rebuilt from the original plans between 1977 and 1985.
Augustus the Strong's orangery and festival ground, the first historic building in Dresden to be rebuilt after 1945.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 11 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 11 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Dresden — the Striezelmarkt, Stollen and the Rebuilt City, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
11 narration points, including The Kreuzkirche, The Altmarkt, The Neumarkt and the Johanneum, The Residenzschloss and The Zwinger. That is about 22 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 11 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.