Erzgebirge towns, best places and “home base”

I am planning a similar trip. I have found the tourism websites for towns in the area provide the most help with planning. You will want to decide soon on where to stay in the Erzgebirge area-weekends are when the Miner's Parades and special events happen during Advent, and lodging is hard to find. It may be easier on weeknights. I used booking com.; I emailed several hotels in Seiffen as well but they had no room or further recommendations. It may be that staying for a few nights in a larger town (Chemnitz, Freiberg) will be your best bet.

BTW...be careful with Freiberg vs Freiburg- using "u" will take you to a very different part of Germany!

The itinerary sounds very good. Prague - Görlitz - Dresden and then Erzgebirge is the most logical order. I am not a fan of Karlovy Vary in winter - it's pretty dead then.

The Erzgebirge mountains are a quite large area and I don't think it is convenient to see/do everything from one place. If so, then Annaberg-Buchholz is the central hub. From there it is a relatively quick drive to the western highlights like Schneeberg and Schwarzenberg, Oberwiesenthal with ski lifts, sledding and the narrow-gauge steam train, the more eastern highlights like Seiffen, Olbernhau.

I'll list some must see places (IMHO) here:
Churches:
Annaberg (Annenkirche, Bergkirche)
Schneeberg
Schwarzenberg
Freiberg (Dom)
Castles:
Scharfenstein
Schwarzenberg
Augustusburg
Museums:
Annaberg (Manufaktur der Träume, Erzgebirgsmuseum, Frohnauer Hammer)
Schneeberg (Volkskunstmuseum)
Seiffen (Spielzeugmuseum)
Olbernhau (Stadtmuseum)
Freiberg (Stadtmuseum, Terra Mineralia)
Others:
all sorts of small manufactures in Seiffen
Wendt & Kühn in Grünhainichen
smoking candle manufactures in Crottendorf and Neudorf
lace making demonstration in Schneeberg
Mt. Fichtelberg in Oberwiesenthal with the oldest mountain cable car in Germany
touring a former mine somewhere
seeing a miners procession
attending an Advent concert somewhere (churches)

and, and, and ...

I haven't been to that area in Nov/Dec; my trip was in the summer. But Goerlitz is gorgeous. I'd want to spend at least one night there. The Polish side of town (Zgorzelec) is not as well-restored as the German side, but it's worth a look, too.

There's a glass museum in Lauscha, which used to be a center of glass manufacturing. It's worth a look if you're in the area, but it's not one of Europe's best glass museums. As of 2015 Lauscha had some shops selling Christmas ornaments, including a large store that got bus tours. I'd guess it could be busy in the lead-up to Christmas, and weekends might be worse. I think the small shops weren't open on the day I hit town, which was either Saturday or Sunday. (I'm traveling and can't check my records.)

And Lauschau is in Thuringia, quite a long distance from the Erzgebirge mountains ...

Driving is nice in this area if you like to drive, but different. Many secondary roads are twisty-turny, up and down and narrow. Some are tree lined. Most have been updated since the DDR days. It can take a longer time to get between places. You'll find some unique places along the way. Maybe some snow? I've always enjoyed it. Consider the Elbe and the Sächsische Schweiz too. Maybe an Apartment/Fewo in a place like Annaberg-Buchholz? We did that not far from the market square over an Advent weekend years ago (Weihnachtsmarkt). Ah the long gone Rumpel die Pumpel Kellerkneipe. I guess it's a restaurant now. Glück auf!
https://www.erzgebirge-tourismus.de/fileadmin/upload/redakteur/02_Weihnachtszeit/Download/Weihnachtsmaerkte_und_Bergparaden_2023.pdf

Thanks for the responses. A quick update-
We booked Prague, Gorlitz and Dresden, then we’re renting a car to Annaberg- Buchholtz. We’ll stay there for the remainder of the trip, the bookings were going fast and the stress level (at home haha) was rising. It was too hard to figure out which city to land on for which days- so we’ll do some more homework on that and be ready to go when we get there.

We were in Seiffen last September. Ibrenn’s advice was invaluable. I just read Ibrenn’s response to this post. It is amazing. I found this area, the former East Germany, a very interesting place.

Hello Ibrenn!!!

It's off your route, but I was sorry to miss the Karl Zeiss Museum in Jena. You don't say "19th Century" or "21st Century" Architecture, but Zaha Hadid did some assembly plant design for BMW in the area. You'd only be able to see the exteriors. One old residential architecture option is the nearby UNESCO WHS Dessau-Wörlitz Gartenreich, which is also a garden-destination. Slightly farther, Erfurt has the oldest building in Europe that was used as a Synagogue (older than the one in Prague.) The exhibits there are as much about medieval life in the town as they are about Jewish history.

You sound like an experienced Germany-traveler. When we were in this area 15 years ago, it was still common to meet older museum guides and the like for whom the High School foreign-language was Russian, not English. So there was much less English than the rest of Germany. This made booking the one English tour of the day very important.

Hello Mo R! Good to see you around ... and very happy I could help! :-)