Festung Königstein

There was one weekend when we went to Dresden. The primary reason was to watch an opera. But we did more than that. On the Saturday of that weekend, we also went to Königstein. This town is in Saxon Switzerland, and is most famous for the location of a fortress, the Festung Königstein.

I actually have been near this fortress a few times. I have passed by it as I was riding the train that goes next to the Elbe a few times. I also passed by it on foot, when I was hiking the Malerweg. But I haven't been inside yet. So this was the chance. We left Dresden after breakfast, and took the S-Bahn all the way to the train station closest to Königstein. And from there, we hiked up, which took about 30 minutes.

We took our leisurely time exploring the place. We walked along the walls, which provided amazing panoramas of the valley below. We also checked out the various buildings that were located within the fortress, as it essentially is an open-air museum.

When we were there, there was some reenactment going on. There were people wearing period attire, and they were even shooting cannons! So every now and then, there would be a loud boom! And we would later smell gunpowder. The kids found it massively fun of course.

Anyway, after a few hours, we decided that we have seen everything we wanted to see, so we slowly made our way to the exit, and did the return hike back to the train station. And from there, we took the S-Bahn back to Dresden.