Kreuzkirche, Dresden

Kreuzkirche, Dresden tickets: which one to buy

The Kreuzkirche stands on the old market square in Dresden, a few minutes from the rebuilt Frauenkirche and the royal palace, and entry is free. The tower is ticketed, cheap, and gives a view across the old town and the river that is better than the more famous dome nearby because it includes that dome. The real reason to plan around this church is the boys' choir, which has sung here for some eight hundred years and is among the oldest in the world;

its Saturday afternoon vespers are free and open to anyone, and the sung services at Christmas and Easter are ticketed and sell out months ahead. Walking tours of the old town include the church, though many concentrate on the baroque quarter and skip it. Check the music calendar before deciding when to come, because it changes the visit entirely. The tower entrance is inside the church rather than on the street, and the last ascent is an hour before closing.

Visiting Kreuzkirche, Dresden: what to see

A Romanesque basilica stood here from the twelfth century, and a side chapel holding a relic of the True Cross eventually gave the whole building its name. It was rebuilt as a Gothic hall church, burned in 1491, and burned four more times over the following centuries, the last time in the firestorm of February 1945. The present exterior is eighteenth-century baroque with a tower of ninety-four metres.

What makes the interior remarkable is the decision taken during the post-war repair: rather than restoring the decorative plasterwork, the walls were finished in a rough grey render, sprayed on and left raw, so the whole vast space is bare and slightly unfinished. It was intended as a temporary solution and has been kept deliberately, as a memorial to the destruction of the city. The effect is sombre and acoustically extraordinary, which suits the choir. The organ was rebuilt in 1963 and again in recent years and carries more than six thousand pipes.

Kreuzkirche, Dresden opening hours and the best time to go

Saturday afternoon vespers are the fixed point of the week. The church is otherwise open through the day with shorter hours in winter and closes around services. The tower closes earlier and in bad weather. Dresden's Christmas market, one of the oldest in Germany, fills the square immediately beside the church through December and the choir sings several times that month.

The anniversary of the bombing on the thirteenth of February is marked across the city with a human chain and services, and the Kreuzkirche is central to it. Summer brings the music festival and crowds along the terrace by the river. The Frauenkirche, the old masters gallery and the green vault are all within ten minutes. Allow half an hour inside, plus the tower. Tickets for the Christmas performances go on sale in the spring and are gone within weeks.