Sometimes being a bit off the beaten track, and shielded from the main events of history, has its advantages. Lying low certainly helped the German border town of Görlitz. It somehow avoided the double whammy of damage during World War Two, and the concrete tower blocks that were the result of Communist-era ‘development’.
This makes Görlitz so rare in Central Europe, a town that looks just as it did before World War Two. This is why, since the fall of the GDR, it has become a much-sought-after film location. And these movies have opened many people’s eyes to its charms, including ours.
There are more than enough things to do in Görlitz to warrant a detour to this relatively unexplored part of Germany. Görlitz isn’t very close to anywhere else on the main tourist trail, but heading out this way to the German-Polish border brings its rewards. After living in the region for over four years, I rate it one of the best places to visit in Central Europe, and one of the most beguiling towns on the continent.
Now let’s see why all these film directors rave over the place!
Things To Do In Görlitz
Wander The Old Town
The best way to experience Görlitz is to wander its atmospheric Altstadt (old town). It’s beautifully preserved, and some of the streets have scarcely changed in hundreds of years.
The Obermarkt square is a great place to start. Follow Bruderstrasse down to the Untermarkt and Rathaus (Town Hall) before continuing down Neissstrasse, perhaps the most beautiful street in Görlitz, to the river and the border with Poland.
As you’ll have seen, there are many side streets and alleyways along the way. Take your time, and go wandering through them.
I also recommend following tiny, narrow Schwarze Strasse off Bruder Strasse, and following Fischmarkt towards the river, and walking along Weberstrasse back towards the Untermarkt.
You’ll feel like you’re walking through a film set – which is exactly what you’re doing!
Visit The Barockhaus
The Baroque House, on the corner of the Untermarkt, was built in 1729 by wealthy trader Christian Ameiss. Part of it is a Museum with the house decorated as it would have been during his time. It’s a gorgeous building, from the distinctive red door (pictured above) to its long interior courtyard, similar to many houses built in Leipzig at the time.
In 1804, the building became home to the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences, and its library – now with over 140,000 volumes – was added. As with most of these centuries-old libraries, you can only stand at the entrance and admire the sight of thousands of old books stacked on shelves.
Enjoy A Coffee And Cake At The Renaissance-Era Ratscafe
The Ratscafe is on the corner of Untermarkt and Peterstrasse, in a striking Renaissance-period house that became home to a pharmacy in the 1750s. The sculptures and decoration on the building are gorgeous, and as I was visiting on a frigid winter’s day, I succumbed to the temptation to indulge in a hot chocolate and a nusstorte (nut cake).
They also serve various hot meals through the day. The tables outside are a great place to sit and eat or drink during the warmer months.
Cross the River Neisse and Border Into Poland – And Come Back Again
My son was intrigued by the possibility of walking into another country, and then back again. And I was looking forward to setting foot in Poland – a country I adore – again, however briefly!
Görlitz was divided between Germany and Poland in the aftermath of World War Two. The now-Polish part was renamed Zgorzelec, but the footbridge connecting the two towns was blown up in 1945. It was only rebuilt and reopened in 2004, the year that Poland joined the European Union.
When we visited (January 2024) the border was unmanned, so everyone could walk back and forth across the river between the two countries. We had our passports just in case, but didn’t need them. However, with increased border checks in Germany at the time of writing (September 2024) I would take the precaution of having your documents with you.
Wonder at The Beautifully Decorated Woad House
The Woad House (Waidhaus) is one of my favourite buildings in Görlitz. It’s located right next to the Peterskirche, and you can clearly see it to the left of the church from the Polish side of the river.
There was a building on the site as early as then 12th century. It served as a school in the 15th and early 16th centuries, and at some point had floors added. It was used to store woad, a plant from which blue dye was extracted in the Middle Ages.
The corners of the Woad House are beautifully decorated with bright panels with circles and lined patterns, which feature in the image above.
Visit SS Peter and Paul Church
From the river, the twin spires of the Peterskirche – SS Peter and Paul Church – dominate the Görlitz skyline. Up close, the church is immense and imposing, its spires soaring high above the surrounding streets.
It’s a vast Gothic hall church, completed in the late 15th century. It was badly damaged by fire in 1691, and promptly rebuilt. The spires above the west front were added in the 19th century.
The main sight within the church is the 1697 Sun Organ, the work of Eugenio Gasperini. You can hear it being played on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12 noon from March through to December. The church is open daily during the same months (10.00 am to 4.00 pm Monday to Saturday, 11.30 am to 4.00 pm on Sundays). However, it is closed except Sundays in January and February.
Untermarkt
The Untermarkt is the most beautiful square in Görlitz. Several of the town’s main sights are around the square, and a couple of cafes and bars make it one of the liveliest spots in town on a summer’s evening.
The most prominent sight is the Rathaus (Town Hall), with its soaring tower and astronomical clock. You can climb to the viewing gallery – one of several tower viewpoints in the city. But if you’re visiting in winter, as I was, expect it to be closed.
Opposite the Town Hall, the Brauner Hirsch (Brown Deer) is a Baroque townhouse that has also been used as a film location. The lead shot for this article was made there, under the arches that also doubled as a cloister in The Grand Budapest Hotel.
The square is actually divided into two parts by a block of buildings in the centre. The other half of the Untermarkt includes the Ratscafe and, a few doors down, the Whispering Arch (Flusterbogen). Stand on one side and whisper into the stonework, and someone on the other side will hear you.
Silesian Museum
The Polish part of Görlitz, Zgorzelec, is the westernmost point in Silesia, a region which extends across southwestern Poland and the northeast of the Czech Republic. This Museum, on the corner of the Untermarkt, makes an excellent introduction to the region (Schlesien in German, Śląsk – pronounced Shlonsk – in Polish).
The Museum is housed in one of the most beautiful buildings in Görlitz. The Schönhof is a Renaissance masterpiece, built after a fire destroyed an earlier house on the site in 1525.
The permanent exhibition takes you through the landscape and history of Silesia. For centuries much of it was under German rule, until the map of Europe was reshaped by the settlement of the Second World War in 1945, when Poland lost territory to the east but gained some in the west.
Temporary exhibitions are also held at the Museum – when I visited there was an exhibition on Jacob Böhme, a theologian and philosopher who spent much of his life in Görlitz.
Explore the Obermarkt and the Holy Trinity Church
The other main square in Görlitz Old Town is the larger Obermarkt. It’s not as intimate as the Untermarkt – it’s more open, and part of it is used as a car park. But its mansions are an impressive sight, and a great backdrop when part of the square hosts an ice rink in winter.
Like a few other sights in Görlitz, the Holy Trinity Church (Dreifaltigkeitskirche) is closed in January and February. I was reconciled to this before I visited, but was still disappointed. The relatively plain exterior doesn’t hint at the beautiful painted walls and ceiling vaults within, and I would have loved to see them. .
Climb Some Of The Towers of Görlitz
Görlitz is a great city for tower climbing. As well as the Town Hall, you can also climb two other towers in the town.
The largest of the old town hall towers is the Dicker Turm (which means Thick Tower, but is sometimes translated as ‘Fat’). Confusingly it’s also called the Frauenturm (Ladies Tower), and it’s located across Marienplatz from the Kaufhaus department store building. The 46-metre-high tower is only open on Thursday afternoons each week, from 12.00 pm to 4.00 pm.
The Reichenbacher Tor (Reichenbach Tower) is at the western end of the Obermarkt, less than five minutes’ walk from the Dicker Turm. There’s an exhibition on the history of the town walls on the lower floors. Opening hours are more frequent than the Dicker Turm – it’s open Tuesdays to Sundays, opening at 10.00 am each day from April to October. It closes Tuesdays to Thursdays at 5.00 pm, and Fridays to Sundays at 6.00 pm.
The Reichenbach Tower is across the street from the Kaisertrutz, another medieval tower which now hosts some of the city museum’s exhibitions on the history of Görlitz.
Kaufhaus – Setting For The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Kaufhaus department store is the setting for one of the most famous films shot in Görlitz, The Grand Budapest Hotel.
It’s a beautiful Art Nouveau building which has been closed since 2009. It served as the location for the hotel interior scenes in the movie, which is set in a fictional mountainous country, Zubrowka. But numerous street scenes were shot around the centre of Görlitz, including those outside Mendl’s Bakery (the interiors were filmed in Dresden).
The interior of the building is well worth visiting, simply to see the gorgeous Art Nouveau glass domed ceiling. If you love the dome of Galeries Lafayette in Paris, you’ll also want to see this.
There are guided tours of the Kaufhaus, which you need to book in advance.
The store is a few metres away from the Demianiplatz tram stop. From the station (Bahnhof) take tram 1 three stops (direction Neisse Park) or tram 2 (also three stops, direction Am Wiesengrund).
If you’re wondering, Zubrowka is named after a Polish vodka, which is often called bison grass vodka. Each bottle is flavoured with a blade of grass from the Białowieźa Forest in eastern Poland, where a herd of European bison still roam wild. Serve the vodka chilled, drink it neat and follow it with a cold apple juice chaser!
Other Görliwood Film Locations
The Demianiplatz tram stop features in another movie starring Ralph Fiennes, The Reader, as do numerous streets around the town.
The Untermarkt also features in The Grand Budapest Hotel , The Young Karl Marx and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.
Görlitz Christmas Market
The Christmas tree at the Untermarkt
The main Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) in Görlitz takes place in the Untermarkt in late November through to mid-December each year. It’s known as the Schlesischer Christkindelsmarkt (literally Silesian Christ Child Market) and includes food and craft stalls, a Nativity scene with animals, and a toy train ride for the kids.
It’s a smaller affair than the more commercialised markets in the main German cities (like Dresden, Leipzig and Berlin), and a lot more intimate. I didn’t visit the Christmas Market in Görlitz, but it’s on a slightly bigger scale than the one we visited many times in Litoměřice over the border in the Czech Republic. Take a look at my short story, A Czech Country Christmas, to find out more.
Görlitz Zoo
Wherever we travel with our animal-loving son, we’re guaranteed to end up in the nearest Zoo at some point. So we took him to the Naturschutz-Tierpark Görlitz, a small wildlife park in the suburbs of the town, a couple of tram stops up the hill from the station.
We had a great day out there. Our Little Man loves to pet different animals, and he had a wonderful time patting and feeding the goats, donkeys and alpacas in the farmyard area.
There are also some more exotic creatures to be found. The two Aussies in my family were delighted to find some kangaroos keeping warm in this chilly corner of Central Europe. And there’s also recreated Tibetan village, where you can wander through the houses. Great for the kids, but Faye and I loved it too.
Places To Visit Near Görlitz
Unlike Dresden, Görlitz isn’t exactly surrounded by an overwhelming choice of places to visit. It makes a great staging post if you’re travelling from Germany to Poland or vice versa, and is one of the best border towns in Europe to explore. It’s also very close to the northernmost part of the Czech Republic.
The nearest town of interest in Germany is Bautzen, half an hour to the west on the train towards Dresden. It’s a beautiful medieval town with some fine fortified towers, a skyline that made me think of it as a Saxon San Gimignano. A little anyway!
It’s a fascinating place to spend a day, whether you wander its old streets, visit the Museum dedicated to the Sorbs (a Western Slavic people that have lived in the area for over a thousand years) or explore the forbidding Stasi Museum, based around the Bautzen II detention centre operated by the dreaded East German secret police.
North of Görlitz, I recommend a few hours at the Bad Muskau or Muzakowski Park, which straddles the German-Polish border. This unique landscaped park, with a fine 19th-century chateau, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It’s also a short drive – around 3 miles (5 km) – from the Rakotzbrücke or Devil’s Bridge. This is a small stone footbridge across a lake near the village of Gablenz. It’s inspired by several other ‘devil’s bridges’ around Europe, supposedly so difficult to build that only Satan himself could have completed them. Reflected in the water, the bridge makes a near-perfect circle – so it has become a big draw for photographers in recent years. My tip: just try not to visit on a windy day!
If you’re travelling by train, Görlitz is a possible jumping-off point for exploring the sandstone mountains ranges that extend south across the Czech border towards the Bohemian Paradise region. Change at Löbau for Zittau, a beautiful small city on the Czech border, and there’s a gorgeous narrow-gauge railway running from there to nearby Jonsdorf. The northernmost Czech city, Liberec, is just a few miles further away, as is Frydlant Castle, one of the most impressive of all Czech Castles.
If you’re driving, Görlitz is within easy reach of the Saxon Switzerland National Park, along with the Bohemian Switzerland National Park across the Czech border. The area is much easier to reach from Dresden, but you can get to some of the best locations, like the Bastei Bridge, via Hohnstein and Rathewalde.
Görlitz is a 90-minute train ride from Dresden. It’s one of the best places to visit in Germany, and somewhere we were fortunate to have as a base for nearly two months. Aim to spend an absolute minimum of one day in Dresden – but it really deserves at least three days to see the best of it.
If you’re heading into Poland, the historic town of Bolesławiec (Bunzlau in German) is around 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Görlitz. As well as its beautiful Old Town, it’s famous worldwide for its pottery – one American friend we met in Germany told me he was going there on his ‘personal pottery pilgrimage’. The local patterns are distinctive – either white dots on a dark blue background, or vice versa.
Where To Stay In Görlitz
The fictitious Grand Budapest Hotel may not be welcoming guests, but there are plenty of great places to stay in Görlitz. After all, these movie stars and film crews need somewhere to rest their heads.
The 5-star Hotel Emmerich is a fantastic choice. It’s on the Untermarkt square, between the Silesian Museum and the Barockhaus, and is a 3-minute walk from the river and bridge over to Poland.
On Görlitz’s other main square, the Obermarkt, the Hotel Schwibbogen Görlitz Altstadt is in another superb location. It’s in the beautiful Old Town area, across the square from the Holy Trinity Church, and only a few minutes’ walk from one of the most useful tram stops in town, at Demianiplatz.
If you yearn to step back a few centuries in time, the Romantik Hotel Tuchmacher may be the one for you. The 4-star hotel occupies a 16th-century Renaissance townhouse in a quiet corner of the Old Town. It’s just across the street from the twin spires of the Peterskirche, one of the main landmarks of Görlitz.
The 3-star Hotel Europa is a very convenient option, across the street from the Postplatz tram stop on the edge of the Old Town. It’s one of the best hotels near the main station in Görlitz, but only 5 minutes’ walk from the Obermarkt square.
Where Is Görlitz
Görlitz is on the German border with Poland, and is the easternmost city in the country.
It is 215 km southeast of the capital, Berlin. And below are some more sample distances from the nearest major European cities:
Dresden to Görlitz – 67 miles (108 km)
Prague to Görlitz – 104 miles (167 km)
Wrocław to Görlitz – 103 miles (165 km)
How To Get To Görlitz
Görlitz isn’t exactly hard to get to, but it is slightly out on a limb. Which means you have to invest a bit of time in getting there.
If you’re travelling by air, the nearest major international airport to Görlitz is Berlin, which is around four hours away by train – but as little as two hours by road.
There are no direct trains from Berlin to Görlitz – you have to change at Dresden (Neustadt or Hauptbahnhof). Trains between Dresden and Görlitz are operated by Trilex, and leave from platform 13 at Dresden Hbf. These services take 90 minutes.
There is one direct Flixbus service a day from Berlin to Görlitz, taking 4 hours 45 minutes.
There are no direct train or bus services from Prague to Görlitz. The cities are quite close to each other but getting from one to the other is a 4-5 hour trek as you have to change at Dresden.
Things To Do In Görlitz – Final Thoughts
I hope you have enjoyed my guide to Görlitz. I adore visiting old towns in Central Europe, and Görlitz is one of the most magical, because it’s untouched and avoided the blows of history that were dealt elsewhere.
It takes a little bit of an effort to get to Görlitz, but it’s very much worth it. I recommend trying to fit Görlitz into your Germany itinerary, and even a Central Europe itinerary if you’re planning to cross an international border or two.
The most obvious places to combine Görlitz with are Dresden or Berlin. For more of an idea about the region, check out my articles on the best day trips from Dresden, and the best places to visit in eastern Germany. It’s a compelling part of the world to visit, and Görlitz is one of its absolute highlights.
And for further inspiration, check out my Germany Travel Guide page.