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.

Equally, I am sure that I am not the only Brit who feels an element of guilt when visiting a German city, and witnessing its unappealing architecture.

After all, we are partly (along with our Allies) responsible for unleashing aerial bombardments that pounded many urban centres to dust, and sometimes without much in the way of specific justification. Accordingly I was delighted to go to Dresden, some years ago, for the finishing of the Frauenkirche, the last big piece in a painstaking jigsaw of reconstruction. Dresden today is a great place to go for tourists, but the cost of that jigsaw was huge, and the picture it now presents is one that belongs to a previous incarnation of Germany, a Germany of electors and margraves. Pretty, but passé.

Cologne is a different story. It doesn’t photograph well, anyone can see that. Downtown is mainly low-rise blocks from the 1960s and 1970s, lumpish and turgid, of no particular architectural distinction. There’s a bit of the old city down by the riverside, along the Buttermarkt, with overhangs and cobbles, which gives an impression of what might have been. And the traditional brauhaus interiors still offer a glimpse of echt kölnisch life.

But I like Cologne as it is, lumpish though it may be; it is comfortable in its own skin. It has an unconventionality, a liveliness, an open-mindedness, that some other cities don’t. It is a good example of how you shouldn’t judge a city by its appearances. Host to this year’s world Gay Games, to chess-boxing (yes, it exists, Google it), to a nightly open-air community get-together in Brussels Square in the Belgian Quarter, and to an outrageous annual Carnival, it has got real personality that is undiminished by its lack of beauty. It wears its heart on its sleeve. It is busy, cheerful, creative, doesn’t empty when the shops shut, and it doesn’t mind extending its welcome to all and sundry.

It’s also one of the few cities in Germany where I don’t feel guilty when crossing the road (I don’t like the word jaywalking, it’s too American, can’t we come up with a British version?). Although here there’s a real danger of being mown down by a cyclist. As my most recent city guide, a Blackadder-loving ukulele-playing Colonial (can I call him that? I rather like it) said: “what’s the point of cycling if you have to stop for red lights?”

Anyway, be prepared for the unexpected when you’re next in this gateway city. Sitting in Peters Brauhaus the other day, enjoying my kölsch (served by a smiling Egyptian from Cairo) and surveying the restaurant menu, my attention was caught by my neighbour, an elderly Colonial who was enjoying a long lunch of pig’s trotters with his fragrant wife. “Don’t eat the half-chicken.” He warned. I immediately thought of salmonella, but he put me right. “It is only a cheese roll.”

No, we don’t need to feel guilty about Germany’s city centres. And I think the tourismus people got it just right with their slogan, ‘Cologne is a feeling.’ A good one, too.