Frauenkirche, Dresden

Frauenkirche, Dresden tickets: which one to buy

Entry to the church is free during opening hours, with a donation box at the door. The dome climb is the ticket: a ramped walkway and then steps to a gallery at 67 metres, with a view over the Elbe and the rebuilt old town, and it costs a moderate sum with timed entry in summer. Audio guides are rented at the entrance. Organ and choral concerts are held several evenings a week and ticketed separately;

the Silbermann-style organ built in 2005 is a reconstruction of the instrument Bach played here in 1736. Guided city tours include the Frauenkirche and cost several times the climb. Booking is advisable for the dome in July and August and for the better concerts. The crypt below hosts services and a small exhibition and is free. The church runs its own guided tours in German several times a week for a small fee, and they go into the crypt and the vestry.

Visiting Frauenkirche, Dresden: what to see

George Baehr built the church between 1726 and 1743 as a Lutheran statement, funded by the citizens after their elector converted to Catholicism to gain the Polish crown. Its stone dome, nicknamed the stone bell, was one of the largest in Europe and stood through the bombing of February 1945 until the sandstone, heated to 1,000 degrees, failed two days later and the whole church collapsed. The East German authorities left the rubble as a war memorial for forty-five years.

After reunification the church was rebuilt between 1994 and 2005 using original stones wherever they could be identified from photographs and a computer model; those blackened blocks are set into the pale new sandstone, which is why the exterior is piebald. The golden orb and cross on the top were made in London by a silversmith whose father flew in the raid. The altar, smashed into thousands of fragments in 1945, was reassembled from the rubble and stands restored behind the communion table.

Frauenkirche, Dresden opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily to visitors outside services, usually mid-morning to evening, with frequent closures for prayers, concerts and weddings announced on a board at the door. The dome climb runs to its own schedule and closes in storms. Dresden is busiest in summer and during the Striezelmarkt in December, when the square below is filled with stalls. The interior is pale pink and gold and photographs well in the middle of the day.

Photography without flash is allowed. Dress is informal. Allow forty minutes for the church, ninety with the dome. The Zwinger, the Semper Opera and the Green Vault are all within ten minutes, and the terrace above the Elbe starts at the church door. The Neumarkt around the church was rebuilt in the 2000s in a historicist style that divides architectural opinion as sharply as the church itself once did.