Dresden or Dusseldorf/Cologne

Dresden. Great museums (Old Masters, Green Vaults, Turkish Chamber), a small, reconstructed old town with some impressive buildings (Zwinger, Frauenkirche, castle), a nice nightlife district (Neustadt), beautiful suburbs (around Blue Wonder bridge) and surroundings that offer perfectly preserved medieval towns (Meissen, Freiberg, Pirna, Bautzen, Görlitz) and gorgeous mountains (Saxon Switzerland). Some of the sights, like Pirna, Saxon Switzerland or Meissen, can be reached by boat, with the oldest and biggest paddle steamer fleet in the world.

It's kind of a toss up and may depend on when you are going. Dresden is more walkable and there is a lot to see inside which would be important is you are there in the winter. When you combine what is in the city with the really neat old river steamers you can see a lot without resorting to train trips. Cologne has the cathedral, which is magnificent, but that is about all. From Cologne you really need to take a train to Koblenz to catch a river steamer since the Rhine between Cologne and Koblenz is truly boring. From Koblenz you could also go up the Mosel and see Berg Eltz.

Hi, Choosing between the two here depends on whether you want to see the lower Rhine area of Düsseldorf or Saxony. I wouild choose Saxony for those reasons listed above....go to Dresden...a really beautiful city in Germany.

At some point I would love to see all the regions of Germany so choosing one or the other is not vital on this trip. We're planning to go at the end of March, first of April so we know that the weather can still be winter or starting an early spring, we'll also be in Munich and Berlin again on this trip. Thanks for the votes.

I've been to Cologne twice in two years, but I give Dresden a slight edge. You said 3 nights, but we combined Dresden with Leipzig, Erfurt, Weimar, and Eisenach. (Kind of a Bach pilgrimage ...) Quedlinberg was too long a drive, but I had always wanted to see it, and was glad we made the effort, too. Buchenwald is next to Weimar.