This Old Masters Museum is in a complex. The museum entrance was hard to find because of the…read moretourist groups gathering and blocking the entrance. Once we made it into the building, we were rudely greeted by two old and angry women, and told to go downstairs for tickets. We were directed to self service lockers for coats and backpacks then to purchase tickets. The same rude "greeters" on the first floor practically yelled at me because I had my purse with me. She demanded that I return and store it in the locker. I asked if I could keep it with me because it contained my passport and with a stern and rude "nein" she turned me away. I did manage to put my valuables in my pocket in hopes that there are no pick pockets in the museum. The museum's collection is impressive, but the curation is not up to par. Many of the master works are behind glass such as Raphael's Sistina Madonna. The skylights and lighting above the Sistina Madonna casted a terrible glare, which made it impossible to enjoy the piece from a direct front view. The pieces are incredible, which would make this a 5* museum, but the terrible curation and horrible customer service bumped down 2*.

Ekstasis ~ "standing outside oneself" (from Greek, ex- "out" + histanai "to place")…read more First there was Raphael's Sistine Madonna. Then, somewhere between Giorgione's Sleeping Venus and Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window -- ecstasy waved and found us: sitting on round sofas, gazing at art.

As an overview, this is supposed to be a world-class museum summarizing the history of the German…read moremilitary. Perhaps analogize this museum to a Smithsonian in the U.S. The musuem's website boasts: "The Bundeswehr Museum of Military History in Dresden is one of the three major historical museums in Germany, as well as one of the most innovative military museums in the world." But from a museum management and facilities perspective, this museum is a national embarrassment to Germany. Why? Because the museum has completely inadequate lighting. During our visit, the lights were completely turned off in the 1300-1914 exhibit for the first two hours. We literally had to use our phone as flashlights to read anything. The overall the lighting is bad in other areas where the lights were on. The museum website should openly tell people the museum lacks lighting and visitors should bring their own flashlights. If the lighting had been working, I would have given this museum 5 stars. But I rate museums based on actual experience, not aspirational wants. Getting past the lighting fiasco, the museum's chronological coverage of German military history is logical and well-developed. Seeing WWI and WWII through another historical lens is always interesting (as an aside, I strongly recommend the Yasukuni Shrine and its war museum Yūshūkan in Tokyo for an interesting perspective on WWII). Concerning some of the more detailed exhibits, we consistently encountered exhibits with no design and forethought. For example, in one area with vertical pullouts concerning varying views on Napoleon, the pullouts would not extend far enough out to see the whole exhibit. In other areas, videos did not play. I was shocked by the non-functional displays and backwardness in this museum. On the positive side, some of the displays were truly unique including the display on animals used by militaries. Consider skipping the displays on floor 3. Floor 3 has the strangest, tightly spaced, ridiculous vertical displays I've even seen anywhere. Overall cleanliness: Excellent Bathroom cleanliness: Excellent Snack bar: closed when we visited Viewing station of downtown Dresden: impaired visibility due to the building design but worth a quick peek. Time budget: minimum 3-4 hours

NOTE: bring a flash light to see the displays…read more Arrival: this is far from the Dresden city center, but we took the tram here. Google assisted and we were able to take tram 7 here. It was 9 stops and took roughly 23 minutes to arrive. It was an easy walk from the tram to the museum. It was lightly snowing on the walk over. It is a neat modern/classic building that is very nice to look at. The top has a look out of Dresden, but the railing and roof system makes it very hard to see the view. Negatives: 1. there is a sign posted at the museum ticket counter that was a bit odd. It said they do not have replacement bulbs, I thought it was odd. The museum displays more than half have no bulbs. So bring a flashlight or be prepared to use your phone to light the displays because the displays are mounted on black material and in the morning with no sunlight you cannot read anything. There are windows, but they are permanently closed. 2. There is no WiFi. 3. Anything with an interactive video monitor does not work. This is a wonderful military museum with a great deal of history to read and there is a lot of reading to be done while at this museum. The font is a bit small so be prepared to squint in the dark if you don't have a flashlight or in some displays you cannot read anything at all. There are some odd ways of displaying items in the museum, like vertical parallel displays that you have to squeeze between people to look at in the dark with very narrow openings. The museum has military items from paintings, books, clothing, propaganda, children toys, and how each member of the family and including animals were used during the war. There is a coat room to put your coat for storage so you don't have to take it along with you. The museum is quite hot. Cafe: closed Bathrooms: above average cleanliness Cleanliness: above average

Very good museum displaying different kinds of transport with cool photos and models of cars,…read morebuggy's, trains, etc. I enjoyed this a lot. It a realtively small museum with 2 levels and should take about 30-45 minutes to visit. Some of the displays did not have English (some did) descriptions. A good place to visit if you find this type of subject matter interesting.

Beautiful castle! Large and embedded in the Old City of Dresden…read more Perfektes Schloss! Gross und im Bezirk der Alten Stadt Dresden. Review: 5

A great value with an amazing collection. It was almost too much to take in! The alarmed displays…read moreare a great way to alert staff when someone gets too close without impeding viewability. I appreciated being able to go at our own pace & highly recommend taking a closer look at the details on some of the displayed items. For example, one knife handle has detsiled images on cameos the size of my fingernail embedded. The display glass was crystal clear (I saw a few people bonk their heads leaning in), and the lighting was reflection free- truly stunning display cases. I would gladly go back

I was skeptical of this museum (and in particular the exhibit on the 2nd floor) after reading the…read moreintroductory remarks which are full of typical postmodern art museum BS. That said I found the exhibit enjoyably interesting. 2 hrs here is enough for a quick stroll through the 3 floors. Spend more time on the 2nd. I used the Dresden Museum pass here.

This was an interesting 45 minutes. It is a display of products from the old East Germany on the…read moresecond floor of Simmel Center, a shopping center. There are several cars, motorcycles, clocks, living room settings, toys, uniforms, etc. The place is a bit hard to find. You can buy a combination ticket for this exhibit and the Stasi Museum here in Dresden. That is more interesting so if you can only do one, do the Stasi.

Beautiful museum and amazing tour guide!!! Learned a lot of history, the museum offers little…read moreEnglish translation but enough to get by. They have pamphlets in English. My group was well taken care of here & I enjoyed it immensely.

The "Procession of Princes" is a large mural of the rulers of Saxony. It was originally painted…read morebetween 1871 and 1876. It is 102 metres (335 ft) and one of the highlights in Dresden.

We walked passed this place at the evening, right after the dinner. It was really great to walked…read morearound the place. The painting itself was great. Full of detail to dig into, very historical and cultural. All the historical moment show at one to they eyes of the visitor. There was a street music band playing some classic music at the back, when we were there. It made our experience even greater and at the same romantic. It was like wtaching a movie, my imagination was dancing with the paint on Fürstenzug along with the music. There was lights all around the painting. It definitely seem more interesting to me. We were here about 15 mins just looking at it and enjoying the atmosphere. After this we went on walked around. It was a great time. The location of Fürstenzug is really close to other famous sights in Dresden. At night, there are lots of cool bar around. Great place to hang around.