9 Best Sights in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, Germany

Although dominated by the nearby brutal Kulturpalast (Palace of Culture), the Altmarkt is a fascinating concrete leftover from the 1970s (check out the "workers and peasants" GDR mosaic), and the broad square and its surrounding streets are the true center of Dresden. The colonnaded beauty (from the Stalinist-era architecture of the early 1950s) survived the efforts of city planners to turn it into a huge outdoor parking lot. The rebuilt Rathaus (Town Hall) is here (go around the front to see bullet holes in the statuary), as is the yellow-stucco, 18th-century Landhaus, which contains the Stadtmuseum Dresden im Landhaus. Dresdeners joke that you should never park your car here because the square is under almost constant construction and you might never find it again.

Erfurt's most picturesque square is bordered by houses dating from the 16th century and dominated by twin churches. The daily market is a great place to get a Thuringian bratwurst from one of the many stands.

Leipzig's showpiece is its huge, old market square. One side is completely occupied by the Renaissance town hall, the Altes Rathaus.  In the summer the square becomes Leipzig's living room, as concerts, markets, and cafés flow into the streets.

Two statues are the centerpiece here: an 1821 statue of Luther by Johann Gottfried Schadow, designer of the quadriga atop Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, and an 1866 statue of Melanchthon by Frederick Drake. Gabled Renaissance houses containing shops line part of the square.

Naumburg's historic market square lies strategically at the intersection of two medieval trade routes. Although the market burned in 1517, it was painstakingly rebuilt in a combination of Renaissance and baroque styles that are unique to Naumburg.

The Altstadt (Old Town) is full of richly decorated half-timber houses, particularly along Mühlgraben, Schuhof, the Hölle, Breitestrasse, and Schmalstrasse. Notable on the Marktplatz are the Renaissance Rathaus, with a 14th-century statue of Roland signifying the town's independence, and the baroque 1701 Haus Grünhagen. Street and hiking maps and guidebooks (almost all in German) are available in the information office at the Rathaus.

The richly decorated Renaissance homes and warehouses on the Obermarkt are a vivid legacy of the city's wealthy past. During the late Middle Ages the most common merchandise here was cloth, which was bought and sold from covered wagons and on the ground floors of many buildings. Napoléon addressed his troops from the balcony of the house at No. 29.

A statue on this square, in front of the National Theater, shows Goethe, who was shorter in real life, placing a paternal hand on the shoulder of the younger Schiller.

One of Europe's most impressive squares, this market is a testament to the prosperity brought by the cloth trade. It's built up in the middle, and the most important building is No. 14, which formerly housed the city scales. The duty of the city scale masters, whose busts adorn the Renaissance facade of the Gothic building, was to weigh every ounce of merchandise entering the city and to determine the taxes due. The square's most prominent building is the Rathaus. Its winding staircase is as peculiar as its statue of the goddess of justice, whose eyes—contrary to European tradition—are not covered. The corner house on the square, the Alte Ratsapotheke (Old Council Pharmacy), has two intricate sundials on the facade, painted in 1550.