Dresden and surroundings – attractions for children

Is it worth setting off with your child for a weekend in Dresden? Is there anything there that will interest the little ones? By all means! We hereby just put Dresden on the list of cities where you can safely go with children! :)

Since Olive is more and more independent and eager to explore the world we pay more and more attention to the attractions for children during our trips. There are places that we know we have to let go of for a few or a dozen years because there is no point in pushing ourselves there with a child. There are also places that we discover together looking from the perspective of a two-year-old.

Being in Dresden, places for children could not be missing from our list. Although the capital of Saxony is all about galleries, museums and rebuilt monuments, it turns out that you don’t have to look far to get kids interested in something. Some of them are typical attractions for the youngest, and some (such as museums) have special dedicated sections for children. Much, of course, depends on the interests of the child, but I think there is something for everyone on the following list.

We’ve already covered some places in detail in our post on Dresden, but here we’ll just focus on the typical children’s attractions.

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Table of contents

Museum of Transportation (Verkehrsmuseum) in Dresden

This was our highlight during our stay in Dresden. We made one strategic mistake in that we left them at the very end of the day, so we didn’t have much time inside, and it turned out that Olive didn’t even think about leaving the toddler zone.

The zone is located at the very top and is mainly a mini traffic town, where toddlers can navigate streets, overpasses on special rides, they can refuel cars, shop and all while following the rules of safe traffic.

Of course, Olive was too young to know when she must give way, but there were few children on the spot and no collision occurred :) We, for that, were able to show and teach how to move, what lights mean what, and that you must always put the vehicle back in place.

The town is not the only one in this section – there are also several places where you can learn about different structures, textures, elements and techniques of vehicles. Next to it, there is another room with a mock-up with a controllable train, drawing tables, carpets on which to drive cars, etc.

It also turned out to be great fun to explore the other parts of the museum, where we could look at airplanes, model railroads and ships, and even get into vintage train cars.

p.s. if your children, like Olive love trains then it is worth going for a ride on a vintage steam train, for example, to Moritzburg.

Highly recommended!

Address: Augustusstraße 1, 01067 Dresden, Germany

Opening hours: from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 am to 6 pm

Prices: admission with RegioCard – 8 euros, per adult, without card – 9 euros. Children under 5 enter for free, and those aged 5-16 pay 4 Euros.

Museum of Hygiene (Deutsches Hygiene-Museum) in Dresden

Let’s stay with museums. Another one we recommend in good conscience is the Hygiene Museum, especially the children’s section, where you can explore, learn and experiment with the human senses on one floor. This museum is recommended for children aged 4-12, but there were many younger toddlers, and Olive liked many things too.

What do we have here? Separate zones for each of the human senses and so, for example, here we have a maze with mirrors, various optical illusions, we can try on mega ears to see how to hear through them, smell scents both pleasant and those we do not like to smell, there is a tunnel in the dark where you have to trust your sense of touch, etc. We strain our sight, hearing, smell, and perceive the world with various stimuli. Great fun for adults too!

Attention! Smaller children should not enter all the exhibitions in the rest of the museum. While we don’t have a problem with showing nudity and human beings as they are, fetuses in formaldehyde or photos and faces distorted by disease may not be the best idea. Then it’s worth focusing on the aforementioned Children’s Museum, where children have the opportunity to learn about interesting phenomena and the human senses in individual sections.

Address: Lingnerpl. 1, 01069 Dresden, Germany

Opening hours: from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 am to 6 pm

Prices: admission costs 9 euros, per adult, children under 16 enter for free. A good price option is a family ticket – 14 euros (that’s what we paid for the three of us).

Grosser Garten

Not far from the Hygiene Museum is the beautiful Grosser Garten park. It is a huge green area, to which the zoo and botanical garden are adjacent, but that didn’t interest us ;) The biggest fun was the tiny steam train(Dresden Park Railway) circulating through the park. It rides in the park from April to October. The length of the entire route is less than 6 kilometers, and the ride takes about 30 minutes. In our case, it was much more fun to watch the train from the outside than the ride itself.

Address: Hauptallee 10, 01219 Dresden

Opening hours: Tuesday through Sunday, from 10 am to 6 pm, in October until 5 pm.

Prices: the park is visited for free, there is an additional fee for the train. The whole ride – 6 euros per adult, children from 2 years – 3 euros. It is possible to pass cheaply, without getting off for a stretch – 1 Eur/adult, 0,50 Eur/child.

ASP Panama (Panama e.V)

It is a zoo, but not the typical one ;) It is more of a separate area in the city with pens for animals such as rabbits, goats, horses – something like a country homestead. The animals have very cozy areas and enclosures, are well cared for, clean and well fed.

Each animal has a name, a story, and the whole thing is done out of love for animals. There is even a symbolic cemetery for animals here. Very atmospheric place, Olive could watch the animals for hours. There is also a playground, sandbox, slides, etc.

Various meetings and educational activities are also held here.

Address: Seifhennersdorfer Str., 01099 Dresden

Opening hours: Monday-Wednesday 9am-7pm, Thursday, Friday 9am-2pm, Saturday, Sunday 9am-12pm and 4pm-6pm.

Prices: free of charge

Family café Mutzelhaus

Not far from the aforementioned place is the family cafe Mutzelhaus – a cool place for children under 4, although there were a lot of toddlers crawling around during our visit, and Olive was the oldest. One enters the cafe without shoes or outer garments, and when the weather is nice, one can use a small outdoor playground with a sandbox and slide. You come here mainly for coffee, tea, cake, but you can also get something bigger here, and of course there is a large selection of dishes for children ;)

Address: Louisenstraße 54, 01099 Dresden

Opening hours: Monday – Friday 10am – 7pm, Saturday – Sunday 8am – 7pm.

Old Town in Dresden

Dresden’s old town is also worth mentioning. We all enjoyed walking along the Elbe River, watching steamboats and the many horse-drawn carriages gliding through Dresden’s streets.

Every once in a while we found ourselves at performances by street performers, singing, acting, comedians – something the kids like best. It is also worth going into the chocolate stores and cafes, where you can try delicious sweets and sip them with hot chocolate, of course :)

Summary

These are just a few suggestions for a weekend with children in Dresden. Keep in mind that from Dresden almost all of Saxony is open to you – visits to castles and palaces in the Elbe Valley, dressing up as princesses and knights, beautiful landscapes, trekking and biking trails and many, many other places are waiting to be discovered in the area!

Dresden is another city that, on the surface, may not seem very appealing to children, and in fact you will find some really interesting places here! We were delighted, especially with the museums, which we described at the beginning of the post.

Be sure to also see our newer post about all of Saxony, or Saxony with a child – suggestions for a family trip.

We also recommend our other two posts about Dresden:

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104 atrakcje dla dzieci. Polska z pomysłem >>>

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