Many a visitor to Germany will have come across its all-year-round Christmas shops, filled with painted wooden figures, but very few ever make it to the remote fold in the nation’s eastern hills where most of

these figures are made. This is Seiffen, a village in the Ore (Erzgebirge) Mountain range south of Dresden, where it lines the border with the Czech Republic.

Despite their name, these ‘mountains’ don’t get much higher than 500 metres, so the Ore is primarily farming and forestry country, dotted with barns and hamlets. Seiffen is one of its biggest settlements, and there are some 130 individual workshops here, most small, but a couple of them employing over 50 people. Instead of farming, Seiffen’s villagers spend their days sandpapering angel’s wings and putting the moustaches on wooden policemen. Nutcrackers are a local speciality, as are angels, pyramids, arches, and smoking men.

Mining man

Amongst the community’s creations there’s one dominant figure, often dressed in red, who looks like a soldier, but is actually a miner in ceremonial dress. That’s because the former wealth of these hills is under the ground, and the carvers’ ancestors were originally carpenters in the local gold and silver mines. As the mining industry faded – Seiffen’s last closed in 1849 – these carpenters experimented with timber offcuts in their spare time. Back then, they were mainly for community gift-giving: a symbolic figure of a miner in ceremonial uniform traditionally celebrated the birth of a boy, a guardian angel celebrated a girl. These figures became so much part of local lore that they are even found decorating the interior of Seiffen’s very pretty pointy-hatted church.

Today, up to 800 different products are made locally, and a couple of big enterprises in town are obvious tourist attractions for visitors, offering workshop tours: they are Seiffener Volkskunst, at the entry to the village, and Richard Glässer on Haupstrasse, the biggest enterprise in town with 80 employees. Both have copious shops that are a twinkly treasury of fairy-lit carvings, and beyond Glässer’s retail section, a doorway leads into a workshop spread across three floors. Here a series of production lines of disembodied heads and torsos smelling of paint, glue and sawdust are carefully scrutinized by local ladies wielding fine-tipped paintbrushes.

The Seiffen best-sellers are the nutcrackers, actually miners in ceremonial costumes with lever-operated jaws; various styles of pyramid, rotating constructions topped with fans and with nativity figures below; and Schwibbogen candle-lit arches, most commonly seen as eyebrows of light in household windows all over Europe.

For an outsider, the output of this overgrown village may seem both expensive and un-Teutonically kitsch, but when you know the mining backstory, and how everything is still made by hand and not in China, it all begins to make sense.

Meissen is a small town on the Elbe about 15 miles downriver from Dresden, with the prominent Albrechtsburg castle and Meissener Dom (one of the smallest cathedrals in Europe) squashed together on a patch of raised ground above the water. The town has existed for over 1,000 years and was the capital of Saxony until the 15^th century, when the royal court moved to Dresden.

Scenic though these sites are, what really makes the town special is its longstanding association with some of the finest porcelain manufactured anywhere outside China.

The first European porcelain was produced here in 1708. The key to the success of the manufacture of what was known as ‘white gold’ was the large deposits of kaolin (China clay) and potters’ earth to be found in the nearby hills. Two years later the first factory was commissioned by King Augustus the Strong of Saxony at the Albrechtsburg castle. In the mid 19^th century production was moved to the Triebisch valley where it has remained to this day.

With its trademark logo of two crossed blue swords, Meissen is possibly the most famous and recognised porcelain brand in the world. Sitting on a back catalogue of over 700,000 moulds and with over 10,000 colours the factory claims to have the most variety of any manufacturer worldwide. Famous for its figurines and tableware, the company’s products have been able to maintain their reputation for the highest quality for the best part of three centuries.

In the 19^th century its pieces were highly sought after among the ruling classes in Europe, which often built up huge collections. A Meissen porcelain chocolate pot from around 1780 formed one of the wedding gifts for Queen Elizabeth II.

During the period of the German Democratic Republic the Meissen porcelain works were one of the few businesses that operated profitably and continued to export internationally, thereby bringing in much needed foreign currency for the communist regime.

How to visit

The factory is open to visitors all year round (except Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day) and offers daily guided tours plus a visit to the Meissen museum. As a measure of its international renown, the accompanying audio guide is available in 14 different languages. Visits start with a 30 minute tour of four studios where artists demonstrate base throwing, plate painting, figure moulding and glazing. The museum then allows visitors to appreciate historic pieces at their own leisure.

Whilst in Meissen visitors should include a walk up to the castle and its adjacent cathedral. The castle features an exhibit on the initial production of porcelain in the 18^th century, but the views from here over the Elbe are worth the walk alone.

The town is easily reached by taking S1 from Dresden, with trains running every 30 minutes. – Mark Arrol

I first became interested in the illusion of painting as a child. I started to do a lot of drawing, and acquainted myself with the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, whose mastery of perspective I still find breathtaking. As a young man I studied architecture in Dresden and then painting in Berlin, and one of my first jobs was the design for an exhibition about historic panorama paintings of the 19th century. As part of that I recreated a historic panorama depicting Rome, and we reproduced it in huge size for the exhibition.

Then in 1995, during German reunification, there were big discussions about Berlin and the rebuilding of central places such as Potsdamer Platz and Alexanderplatz. I did four panoramas that showed how these and other places would eventually look, and the project was a huge success as ‘normal’ people now could understand what was being discussed.

Later a great opportunity came my way: I wanted to do a panorama of Mount Everest on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its first successful climb, and I heard that Leipzig in Saxony, where I had spent my youth, had an old disused gasometer. They let me restore it, and do my ‘Everest 360°’ inside. It was a great success, and I followed it with ‘Rome CCCXII’, and that’s how the whole thing started.

Dresden was next, and then another in Leipzig, and then in Berlin, and our first export panorama, at Rouen in France. The latest to be developed is the ‘Luther 1517’ panorama which just opened this October, in a new specially built setting in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, the focus of the 500th anniversary celebrations for 2017. In the immediate future there’s a new Leipzig panorama opening in January, and we are working on several more in the next ten years.

Over the last few years I’ve found that the panorama concept attracts a wide range of people, more than just classical museum goers. The impact of having the image all round you is effectively one of total immersion, in a space of time, emotion, thought and memory.

More information on the Asisi homepage.

Last week I was back in Dresden after a long absence. I was last there in 2005 for the inauguration of the Frauenkirche, the church that looks like an ornate teapot and which epitomises the whole bittersweet, phoenix-from-the-ashes story of the city.

Dresden was, of course, completely flattened by Allied carpet-bombing. Since the reunification of Germany its old town has been mostly reconstructed, although there are still one or two gaping holes. Its epicentre, the Frauenkirche, was rebuilt completely from donations, with its tower cross funded by the British (including the Royal Family) and made by a blacksmith whose father was one of the bomber pilots that destroyed the church in the first place.

These days the city’s atmosphere is something like an Oxford or a Prague for Germany. Beautiful, relaxed, timeless, with music echoing off ancient stones. The old town areas are almost entirely car-free, and much of the architecture is massively ornamental, with sculptures of electors, dukes and margraves peering down at the general public from lofty rooflines. The river is busy with steam-powered paddlesteamers, the cobbled streets overflowing with diners from designer restaurants. All in all it is a lovely place to be.

Even the new town along Prager Street, the section built during the communist era which links the railway station to the old town, has been spruced up. It used to be a soulless canyon of dreary shops, but capitalism has injected both life and colour and filled in some of the gaps.

So Dresden could be a major tourist destination for British and international travellers, but it isn’t. Why?

The answer lies in two things. The main one is its transport connections: there are very few international flights into its airport, and none from the UK. Lufthansa tried, as did Cityjet, but their main market was the business traveller, and there isn’t enough business traffic.

We do have lots of flights, of course, from the UK to Berlin, which is only a couple of hours away from Dresden by train, so you can get there with a bit of extra effort. The extra £30 outlay is easily made up by cheaper hotels, meals etc, but there are surprisingly few direct, fast trains. It is almost as if the authorities didn’t want the travelling public to discover this Saxon city.

And then there’s the unfortunate impact of Pegida. Germany-watchers will know that this is the thuggish right-wing anti-immigration movement which has been hogging the headlines, and which has chosen Dresden as its meeting point. Although it is no longer allowed to demonstrate in the heart of the old town, as it used to, it is still a presence in the city.

But the numbers are growing. The graph is still upwards. Dresden’s time will come.

The town of Mittweida lies in deepest Saxony about 50km west of Dresden. Although it has a modest population of around 11,000, it nevertheless has its own museum, the Alte Pfarrhäuser, housed in a converted old vicarage about a hundred metres from the pretty town centre.

We have been travelling to this part of Germany for 10 years now and visit the museum most years. Indeed, I strongly suspect that we might be the only English visitors the museum has ever had. So, what is so wonderful about this museum that keeps drawing us back?

Firstly, even though it is a local foundation, almost everything is done to the highest standards. Display cases are modern and beautifully made, information panels detailed and the story of the town is well told with a range of artefacts, paintings, photographs, models, rooms and documents.

Secondly, it changes a bit every year. Rooms are updated with new displays and items added, and there is nearly always a temporary exhibition. This year it was an exhibition of the work of a photographer from the region, and in a previous year, for example, there was a tongue-in-cheek exhibition on ‘Sachsische sprache’, the Saxon dialect.

The building itself has been beautifully restored and has a pretty garden, so it feels like visiting a lovely old house rather than a museum. Some of its rooms are meticulous recreations of historical living and work spaces in and around the town, focusing on the agriculture and cottage industries that sustained the region before industrialisation. A weaver’s room with its loom is on display, as well as a full set of shoemakers tools and lasts. We were fascinated to see how the many-angled pitched roofs of the town are mainly a result of adding extensions to the height and depth of the buildings, to make extra working and living space inside.

The museum also explains the unusual structure of some of the local villages, which sometimes have two or more parallel streets in the valley not far from the stream. At one time most houses would have owned a strip of land running from their property up the side of the valley and onto higher ground. Some families still own these strips of land, usually arable these days, and rent them to larger farms in the area.

Last summer we had a special treat. Having visited the museum, once more dramatically increasing the number of UK visitors, we decided to sit in the garden for a while and look out over the roofs of the town. After a time, one of the staff came out and offered us coffee. The table was beautifully laid and cups, saucers, coffee and biscuits were provided. We sat in the shade on a lovely day, in a lovely place, enjoying the sunlit view and conversation about just how good a small museum in Germany can be.

What’s going on? Last week, in its travel pages, the Daily Telegraph was bemoaning the fact that so few Brits choose Germany for their holidays, praising, in this particular case, the beauty of Freiburg and the Black Forest. The Independent has been describing Dresden as a ‘rebuilt wonder’ and – hold your breath – the Sun has come up with ten (‘not nein’) reasons why the UK should love Germany. The latter piece appeared in answer to German tabloid Bild’s cry ‘Please don’t go, you’re so wonderfully crazy’, telling the UK why it is needed as a EU member. Both articles were full of clichés, as expected, but never mind.

However, the current UK-German love affair doesn’t stop there. Style-bible and über-cool publication Monocle has dedicated its current issue to Germany, telling its readers why the world needs the ‘new Germans: how Europe’s star economy uses business brawn, good design and Gummi Bears to win hearts, minds and tummies.’ A couple of months ago, David Cameron told an audience at a car parts plant in Redditch that the ‘Brits need to be more Germanic to help industry’, by training up more people to do practical jobs. And then there’s Lord Weidenfeld who just professed that Angela Merkel is the contemporary politician he most admires: ‘She’s got moral firmness: solid, rock solid!’ (a wunderbar description of her!).

So, to return to the start. What’s going on? What’s behind the UK’s new-found love for all things German? Well, first of all, for any German living in the UK (including the writer of this blog) all this enthusiasm for ‘contemporary Germany’ as a novel thing is a bit exasperating. Because, after all, if you’ve grown up in contemporary Germany, you know what it’s like and that the country is – surprise, surprise – modern, has a high standard of living, has some really very nice scenery, has a varied cultural scene and is populated by people who have no problem at all with anyone mentioning the war (there goes another cliché). Germans like the good things in life including food and drink and are on the whole quite a decent bunch who do get irony.

What it boils down to is that the UK seems to have discovered modern Germany a bit late. Might be because of the war, might be because it’s nice to cling on to certain stereotypes; Germans do the same, the other way round. That this love-in is happening now is surely part of an ongoing development that has taken place over recent years, including the fall of the Wall, the emergence of Berlin as the place to be for the youth of the world (any age group, in fact), oh, and not to forget the World Cup in 2006 when the country staged its Sommermärchen (summer’s tale) which will forever have a special place in the nation’s collective memory.

In the end, the ‘why’ of the affair doesn’t really matter; it’s nice to see.  And after years of Germany being the more passionate partner in the UK-German relationship, maybe things are about to change.

So the Christmas Market season is finally upon us. All over Germany, almost every town will have some kind of market at its centre, with Glühwein, Bratwurst, and even Germknödel, dinner-plate-sized steamed dumplings made on the spot.  There’ll be all kinds of fruit-based cakes in the Weihnachtsbäckerei, and of course the ubiquitous Lebkuchenherzen (giant gingerbread hearts that taste like cardboard) dangling on ribbons all over.

Amongst the multitude of crafts stalls there’ll be acres of handmade woolly hats, handmade tree decorations, and useful handmade wooden things (bet you didn’t know how many useful handmade wooden things you needed). Look out for brightly-painted bird houses, the little men made of prunes and apricots, and the irresistibly dangly mobiles (and I don’t mean phones).

There’s an informal schedule for the markets. The early part of the evening is the time when families, particularly those with younger children, meet up, to be followed later by groups of friends and work colleagues, on seasonal outings. It’s usually all done and dusted by around 8pm on weeknights, and 10pm on weekends.

In the big cities, of course, the flavour, and the merchandise, is altered a bit by international visitors, because Christmas has become a big player in swelling Germany’s annual visitor figures. This nation has always had a big emphasis on its city breaks, and the presence of a market adds an extra reason for jumping on a plane, particularly in a drab time of year, when airline tickets are relatively cheap.

So which to choose? We recommend you avoid the obvious, ie the likes of Cologne or Berlin. The most atmospheric markets are in the more out of the way spots which might take a bit more effort to reach, but they’re worth the time. Somewhere like pretty half-timbered Bernkastel-Kues, for example, on the Moselle (access from Frankfurt-Hahn served by Ryanair). Or Nuremberg (Air Berlin from Gatwick) with its special Christkindlesmarkt. Or particularly holy Regensburg (Lufthansa to Munich then train), with its Cathedral Sparrows and four markets down narrow, cosy lanes. Or Düsseldorf (easyjet from Gatwick) which instead of one large market has seven separate Christmas themes and attractions in the Altstadt. Or Dresden (new flight with OLT-Express from Southend), the home town of Stollen, which has Germany’s oldest Christmas market, dating back to 1434.

Above all this is the time of year to put the onrush of consumerism, modernisation, technological innovation to one side, and get snuggled down and cosy. It’s a time of year when the oldest traditions are still the best.

There’s no one here but us Saxons. That is how it feels sometimes – we have landed in a place where the people are friendly, the landscape attractive and no one knows about it but us. The locals appear pleased we have come to visit but not in the least surprised – they have known all along that it is a good place to be.

We first holidayed here while seeking out family roots in Zeitz, southeast of Leipzig, six years ago. My partner Liz felt that we should spend a few days in the countryside and booked a farm stay near Mittweida, about 40 miles to the east. For us and our now 13 year old boy this has proved the best holiday decision ever. We have been welcomed almost as family and have been back every year since. It certainly helps that Liz is fluent in German as many locals do not speak much English.

Mittweida itself has a pretty centre, but the town museum rather reluctantly admitted that we were the only English visitors they had ever had. We like pork, potatoes and cucumber and that is a very good thing in this part of Saxony. It’s best not to be a vegetarian.

The town is within a fairly easy drive of Dresden, Meissen and Saxon Switzerland, the biggest tourist attractions hereabouts. A visit to the Meissen factory is interesting and the prices eyewatering. The Saxon Industry Museum in Chemnitz is the best I have ever been to anywhere, with the comedy highlight the camper Trabant, essentially a Trabant with a tent perched on top. The Trabbie was made a few miles away in Zwickau.

As for the farm where we stay, it has been wonderful for our youngster Henry. There is real work to be done with feeding the animals, mending farm equipment, moving the electric fence to allow cattle onto fresh pasture and best of all – driving farm machinery. Seeing your own 13 year old in sole charge of a combine harvester is quite an experience. This is no theme park and children need to behave very well indeed to be safe and to make a proper contribution. We enjoy ourselves wandering around the farm, sitting in the yard and chatting with the family and visitors.

Trips to the open air swimming pool in Rochlitz are a great value treat – a lovely pool in landscaped grounds with a café serving chips and mayonnaise followed with homemade pear ice cream by the pool. It all adds up to a little bit of heaven in Saxony.

They call Dresden the Florence of the Elbe, thanks to the palaces, churches, belltowers and spires ranged along the banks of the soft-flowing river, and thanks also to the wonderful collections of art – ceramics, paintings, sculpture – just inland. But Dresden has something that Florence doesn’t have, something that was once common to many eminently liveable riverside cities of central Europe: an active fleet of paddlesteamers.

In fact the Saxon Paddlesteamer company (Sächsische Dampfschiffahrt) has the oldest and biggest paddle steamer fleet in the world. It consists of nine wheel steamers, two salon ships and two motor ships two, many of them over 130 years old, and one of them, the Diesbar, still even coal-fired.

The oldest and biggest paddlesteamer fleet in the world

Decks quivering, funnels billowing, paddles kiss-kissing the water, these old steamies thump up and down the river all through the year. In winter they stay local to Dresden, but in the summer they venture downriver to Meissen, and upriver to Saxon Switzerland, passing some remarkable castles, vineyards and villa districts en route. In fact this stretch of the Elbe is so well supplied with architectural landmarks that it has recently been designated a world heritage site by UNESCO.

There’s long been a demand for leisure boating here, and back in the days when Dresden was the seat of the Wettin dynasty, the Electors of Saxony, the city used to be known for its quality of life. The industrialists of nearby Chemnitz and Leipzig built their homes on the banks of the Elbe, because ‘Chemnitz is the city to work, Leipzig the city to trade, and Dresden the city to live’.

Some of these mansions are now restaurants and wineries, but the palace at Pillnitz remains open to the public, and the 90-minute trip upriver from Dresden to Pillnitz is the most popular of the paddlesteamer routes.

Pillnitz was once the summer residence of the kings of Saxony and is now a much-admired visitor attraction. Set in delightful countryside, the artistically laid out baroque park and the adjoining English-style landscaped gardens are lovely, and the building itself reflects Augustus the Strong’s fascination with the Far East. Visitors come ashore at a riverside pavilion built for the express purpose of impressing river-borne guests.

In summer, the steamers continue all the way to Bad Schandau, the spa town of Saxon Switzerland, in a journey that takes six hours. Sometimes there are jazz bands on board, and the last stretch, after Pirna, is through spectacular scenery. From Bad Schandau it is only 45 minutes back to Dresden on the train.

More information on the Paddlesteamer Fleet.

It’s not easy listing the mountain ranges in Germany; the Alps, yes, and the Harz. Possibly the Swabian Alps and the Eifel, although the latter’s volcanoes don’t actually look much like mountains. But there’s one other range that definitely looks mountainlike, although it rarely gets higher than 550 metres: Saxon Switzerland, the German section of the Elbe Sandstone Mountain range, which extends across the border into the Czech Republic.

What they lack in height, the sandstone peaks of Saxon Switzerland, southeast of Dresden, more than make up for in drama. They rise steeply in fingers and thumbs of bare rock, over 1,000 of them, several of them towering over the meandering river Elbe, which is partly responsible for carving them in the first place.

What they lack in height they more than make up for in drama

They make ideal climbing territory, and over the years Saxon Switzerland has become a magnet for the climbing community, thanks to the purist so-called ‘Saxon rules’ which were drawn up here limiting the amount of artificial assistance a climber may use. This has since become known as ‘free climbing’, with ropes and bolts only used for protection, but never as a means for climbing. One Saxon peculiarity is the concept of a Baustelle (literally ‘construction site’) where climbers pass a difficult part by climbing on top of each other’s shoulders.

Much of the unusual landscape is protected by the Saxon Switzerland National Park, one of whose aims is actually to limit the human presence in order to maintain one of Europe’s few pristine natural environments. In places its fissures and canyons make it look a bit like a more wooded version of Arizona’s Monument Valley, and it is almost as thinly populated.

Some buildings are in the most inaccessible places, such as the Felsenburg Neurathen castle, built in the 11th Century on the Bastei, natural stone towers above the Elbe, from where it dominated the landscape for three centuries until burned by a besieging army in 1484. Sadly there is little left but ruins, but people come here for the view, and a bridge has been built between the towers to accommodate the increasing tourist traffic.

The other big tourist attraction is the spa town of Bad Schandau, down on the banks of the Elbe, where thousands of visitors come for the mineral water and the invigorating climate. Bad Schandau is only 45 minutes from the centre of Dresden – or rather longer if you choose to make the journey on one of Dresden’s famous old paddlesteamers. A great way to arrive.

The Saxon Switzerland National Park.