Day 1: Stopover in Dresden
Visit the Brühl Garden on the Brühl Terrace. Here you will find a monument in honour of Caspar David Friedrich. Right next to it is the Art Academy, where the painter taught for several years as an associate professor. We recommend a visit to the Albertinum.
Day 2: Hike from Wehlen to the Uttewalder Rock Gate and the Bastei
Not far from the Uttewalder Grund is the famous Bastei Bridge. With its particularly impressive landscape, the Bastei area has always offered a wealth of pictorial motifs for artists. Caspar David Friedrich also immortalised it in some of his works. Threatening, mysterious and equally frightening and attractive: this is how Friedrich often depicted Saxon Switzerland in his paintings.
Day 3: Hiking above the sea of fog
In Krippen, Caspar David Friedrich found refuge from the warfare of the Napoleonic troops. On the way with his sketchbook, he came to rest in this area and made many drawings and sketches. For example, the Caspar David Friedrich hiking trail, which is about 15 km long, leads from Schmilka to his place of inspiration for the sketch "Felsige Kuppe", the Emperor's Crown. It was the perfect model for his famous painting "Wanderer over the Sea of Fog".
Day 4: Romantic hike into the Polenz Valley
In 1800, Caspar David Friedrich set out on his hike into the Polenz Valley. We know the year so precisely because his drawings of the sandstone formations from the region are dated 07 July 1800. His hike The path led him further to Hohnstein Castle, where he drew the "Ruin in the Schinderloch". Even today you can still see this breach in the wall. Hohnstein Castle itself is also worth a visit.
Day 5 Departure
Today it is time to say goodbye. The traces of Caspar David Friedrich now lead back to Dresden, where the painter's main works were created, which are now regarded as worldwide testimonies to German Romanticism. Come back and follow his traces in Dresden and its romantic surroundings and in the Zittau Mountains.
