Dresden

Known as the Florence of the Elbe, Dresden dazzles with the ornate Zwinger Palace (1728), the Semperoper opera house rebuilt in 1985, and the triumphantly reconstructed Frauenkirche church completed in 2005 after its WWII destruction. The Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister holds over 750 masterworks including Raphael's Sistine Madonna, drawing 1.5 million art lovers annually.