On tour through Dessau-Rosslau
From the classic city tour to the search after Walter Gropius, we offer diverse opportunities to discover the history of the city of Dessau-Roßlau.
Book your public guided tour directly on site, by phone or via mail and get to know the secrets of Saxony-Anhalt’s third regional center in person for once.
Please note that the public guided tours are held in German.
At a glance: City Tour Downtown / Jewish history in Dessau / Bike Tour Bauhaus-Junkers-Garden Kingdom / Bauhaus Buildings Bike Tour / Great Garden Kingdom Cycling tours / Small Garden Kingdom Cycling tours / Night Guards Tour / Ises Golden Twenties / From Woman to Woman / Historic Employment Office / Tower Guard of St. Mary’s / Once Arcadia and Back / Tour with double decker bus / Town hall tower ascent / East modern Dessau / Christmas European Journey
All year
- Saturday 11.00 a. m.
Additionaly from April to October
- Monday, Wednesday, Friday 5.00 p. m. *
- 01.05.2024, Ascension day, Whitmonday, October 3rd, Reformation day 2.00 p. m.
New Year’s Eve 11.00 a. m.
* no Friday tour, when there are special thematic tours at the same time.
per person 10 € / reduced 8 €
approx. 90 minutes
Tourist-Information Dessau, Ratsgasse 11
City tour downtown
Discover the changeful history of the city on a tour. Dessau-Rosslau has a history of eight hundred years, offers four times World Heritage and is a place where the lives of many famous people crossed.
The tour shows how the Bauhaus came to Dessau, what the city has to do with the Basic Law and why some of its children are better known abroad than in their birthplace. The tour brings urban spaces to life and gives contemporary witnesses from a wide variety of epochs a chance to speak, in order to unite the city of Father Franz and Erdmannsdorff, Moses Mendelssohn and Kurt Weill, Max and Wilhelm Müller, Junkers, Gropius, Kandinsky and many others into a picture full of contrasts.
23.02., 01.03., 4.00 p. m. each
31.05., 30.08., 5.00 p. m. each
per person 12 €
approx. 90 minutes
Tourist-Information Dessau, Ratsgasse 11
Jewish history in Dessau
More than 350 years have passed from the beginnings of the first settlement of Jewish families in the Principality of Anhalt-Dessau to the present day.
Famous personalities worked in this Jewish community and beyond, enriching the cultural and economic life of our city. With the new synagogue in the historic centre of the Jewish community, Dessau will regain an important religious and cultural place in its city history.
Some historical places of Jewish life at the time of Kurt Weill, Moses Mendelssohn, David Fränkel, Baron Moritz von Cohn and Julie Cohn-Oppenheim are still to be traced. The guided tour along these places goes into the life stories of the city’s Jewish personalities.
25.05., 15.06., 20.07., 17.08., 21.09.
10.00 a. m. each
Participation is limited to a maximum of 15 people.
per person 17 € / reduced 14 €
Bike rental is possible
3 hours
Tourist-Information Dessau, Ratsgasse 11
Bike Tour Bauhaus – Junkers – Garden Kingdom
With the plants of the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Kingdom, Prince Franz of Anhalt-Dessau set a reform program in motion that was the basis for the industrial development of the city of Dessau. This early industrialization attracted both Hugo Junkers and Walter Gropius.
All three were united by their belief in progress. Art and technology were to form a unity. Thus, the tour leads to the places where the pioneers worked and shows the close connection that exists between their work.
04.05., 01.06., 06.07., 03.08., 07.09.
10.00 a. m. each
Participation is limited to a maximum of 15 people.
per person 17 € / reduced 14 €
Bike rental is possible.
3 hours
Tourist-Information Dessau, Ratsgasse 11
Bauhaus Buildings Cycling Tour
On a guided bike tour you will explore all the Bauhaus buildings in the city area – from the Kornhaus on the Elbe to the Masters’ Houses, the Bauhaus building and the Historic Labour Office to the Törten estate in the south of the city.
During the tour, you will learn many interesting facts about the history of the art academy, about the architecture of the buildings and many an anecdote about the Bauhäusler.
Great Garden Kingdom Tour 1:
18.05., 10.00 a. m.
Great Garden Kingdom Tour 2:
08.06., 10.00 a. m. – cancelled –
Participation in both tours is limited to a maximum of 15 people, the minimum number of participants is 4.
Great Garden Kingdom Tour:
per person 17 € / reduced 14 €
Small Garden Kingdom Tour:
per person 12 € / reduced 9 €
Bike rental is possible (10 € per bike and day).
3,5 hours each
Great Garden Kingdom Tour 1:
Jagdbrücke
Great Garden Kingdom Tour 2:
Tourist Information Dessau
Great Garden Kingdom Cycling Tours
On two different tours you will be accompanied by a tour guide through the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Kingdom.
The Great Garden Kingdom Tour 1 takes you along the Prince Franz Cycle Path through the marvellous Garden Kingdom. In Vockerode, you will visit a church commissioned by Prince Franz. The tour ends at Rousseau Island in Wörlitz.
The Great Garden Kingdom Tour 2 invites you to explore two churches in the Garden Kingdom at once. The tour runs through the zoo to the Pötnitz church in Mildensee, continuing via the Napoleon Tower to Waldersee. Here you will visit the Jonitz church with the burial place of the princely couple. Both churches were remodelled according to the plans of Prince Franz.
The return journey is individual for both tours.
Small Garden Kingdom Tour 1:
13.07., 10.00 a. m.
Small Garden Kingdom Tour 2:
24.08., 10.00 a. m.
Small Garden Kingdom Tour 3:
31.08., 10.00 a. m.
Participation in both tours is limited to a maximum of 15 people, the minimum number of participants is 4.
per person 12 € / reduced 9 €
Bike rental is possible (10 € per bike and day).
Small Garden Kingdom Tours 1 and 2:
2,5 hours each
Small Garden Kingdom Tour 3:
1,5 hours
Small Garden Kingdom Tour 1:
Jagdbrücke
Small Garden Kingdom Tour 2:
Großkühnau church (next to Großkühnau Palace)
Small Garden Kingdom Tour 3:
Tourist Information Dessau
Small Garden Kingdom Cycling Tours
There are three different guided cycle tours through the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Kingdom to choose from:
The Small Garden Kingdom Tour 1 starts at the Jagdbrücke, continues to Wallwitzburg Castle, from whose tower you have a wonderful view of the river landscape, through the Kühnau Landscape Park and ends at Kühnau Castle.
The Small Garden Kingdom Tour 2 is approx. 12 kilometres long and leads from Kühnau Castle to Solitude on Sieglitzer Berg. Your tour guide Ute Winkelmann will give you an insight into the Großkühnau church.
The Small Garden Kingdom Tour 3 takes you to the listed river bath at the Rehsumpf and the Jonitz church. Prince Franz and his wife found their final resting place here. A small donation is requested at the facilities.
The return journey is individual for all tours.
- 19.04. 8.00 p. m.
- 17.05., 21.06., 19.07., 16.08., 20.09. 9.00 p. m. each
- 18.10., 22.11., 20.12., 17.01.2025 8.00 p. m. each
per person 10 €
approx. 80 minutes
Marienkirche (St. Mary’s church), Tower entrance, Schloßstr. 3, 06844 Dessau-Roßlau
Night Guards Tour
Follow one of the poorly paid guardians of order and security on his tour of the city and learn about the part of Dessau’s history that takes place in secret: Assassination and forbidden pleasures, secret love affairs and devilishly strange apparitions.
- 29.02., 07.03.
4.00 p. m. each - 03.05., 07.06., 05.07., 02.08., 06.09.
6.00 p. m. each
per person 12 €
1 hour
Tourist-Information Dessau, Ratsgasse 11
Ise's Golden Twenties
Ise and Walter Gropius have an appointment for a soirée with Mayor Fritz Hesse. But Walter Gropius is not at the appointed place. In search of her husband, Ise Gropius therefore takes the visitors on a journey through nocturnal Dessau in the Golden Twenties.
An exciting guided tour of the city in times gone by.
24.02., 02.03., 09.03., 2.00 p. m. each
08.03. 4.00 p. m.
28.06., 27.09., 5.00 p. m. each
per person 12 €
1,5 hours
Tourist-Information Dessau, Ratsgasse 11
From woman to woman
History is mostly written by men. This also applies to the history of the city of Dessau. However, numerous women also had an influence on the fate of the city. Princesses, such as Henriette Katharina of Oranien-Nassau, provided important economic impetus as regents and acted as art collectors. Later, middle-class female politicians set female accents in the Anhalt state parliament and continue to do so today, even in federal politics. As financiers, patrons and organisers, women such as Baroness Julie von Cohn-Oppenheim and Ise Gropius made building projects possible that shaped the cityscape of Dessau.
But women also enriched Dessau’s cultural programme as artists and actresses. Even icons such as Marlene Dietrich did not bypass Dessau.
“From woman to woman” takes you to the places where these women worked, recounts their lives and thus lends a feminine touch to the writing of history.
08.05., 12.06. 3.00 p. m. each
11.07., 15.08., 12.09. 3.30 p. m. each
per person 10 €
2 hours
Tourist-Information Dessau, Ratsgasse 11
Through the City Park to the Historic Employment Office
Starting from the place where the Bauhaus was first discussed in Dessau, the path leads through the former throne heir’s garden, today’s City Park, to Willy-Lohmann-Street / corner of Mariannenstraße. Here the view opens up to the Justice Centre with the Eike von Repgow monument. At this point, reference is made to the creation of this residential quarter, which is connected to the industrial development of Dessau. The route then leads to the Historic Employment Office, which will be visited inside the one-storey round building as part of the guided tour.
The Historic Employment Office was commissioned by the city of Dessau. It was designed by Walter Gropius, who was director of the Bauhaus in Dessau at the time. The Studio Walter Gropius, which worked very closely with the Bauhaus and Dessau companies, was commissioned with the planning and realisation of the building. The building unites form, functionality and technology of modernism in a very special way.
After the tour, the path leads back to Askanische Straße, past the so-called Atelierhaus with the municipal swimming hall located in the courtyard to the museum intersection.
10.05., 14.06., 12.07., 09.08., 13.09., 11.10.
5.00 p. m. each
per person 12,50 € / reduced 8 €
approx. 2 hours
Tourist-Information Dessau, Ratsgasse 11
The tower guard from St. Mary's church
The tower guard is a talkative woman who misses nothing in the city. Dressed in a historical costume, she guides her guests through the old city center. She tells stories about the old Dessau.
The walk ends with a Dessau beer or an apple spritzer at the “boozer board” of the inn brewery “Zum Alten Dessauer”.
13.04., 11.05., 08.06., 13.07., 10.08., 14.09.
2.00 p. m. each
per person 10 € / reduced 8 €
approx. 90 minutes
Restaurant Am Georgengarten, Heinz-Röttger-Str. 16, 06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Once Arcadia and back
On an educational trip that took him through Italy, France, Holland and England, Prince Franz of Anhalt-Dessau collected impressions and experiences in the mid-18th century, which he implemented in the modernization of his princedom.
On the walk through the Georgengarten you will recreate this grand tour.
Embedded in the extensive idyllic landscape garden, you will see Greek temples, Roman ruins, Celtic tumuli and Egyptian sphinxes.
From May to October every Saturday at 1.00 p. m. and 3.00 p. m.
per person 18 € / Children until 16 years 15 €
Tickets are available at the Tourist Information Dessau and on site at the bus.
approx. 90 – 100 minutes
Bus stop between the main post office and the Bauhaus Museum
Friedrichstraße – corner Kavalierstraße
06844 Dessau-Roßlau
Tour with double decker bus
From Hobusch, Junkers and Gropius… Dessau in the double-decker bus especially experienced.
But honestly, there is much more to it than the three people mentioned. Learn about Dessau’s history from its beginnings as a residential town, through industrialization to the present day.
In a good 90 minutes we will take you through the city to all the important places that you must have seen.
But don’t worry, it’s not just a dry lecture on dates, various cheerful stories from over 800 years of city history will put a smile on your face.
From February 26th to September 30th
each Monday at 11.00 a. m. (except for public holidays)
28.11., 05.12., 12.12., 19.12. 4.00 p. m.
per person 4 € / 2 € reduced price
approx. 45 minutes
Tourist Information Dessau
Town Hall Tower Ascent
Not a guided tour as such, but you will be accompanied to the highest building in the city, the 73 m high Rathaus tower.
From there, enjoy the view of the city and the floodplain landscape of the Mulde River.
24.05., 23.08., 5.00 p. m. each
28.04., 23.06., 28.07., 22.09. 2.00 p. m. each
per person 12 €
1,5 hours
Tourist Information Dessau
East modern Dessau
A city tour of the architectural heritage of the GDR.
Find out how the city was rebuilt on the road to socialism after the widespread destruction of the Second World War, in the conflicting areas of practical constraints, historical heritage, progressive ideas and ideological guidelines.
29.11., 06.12., 13.12., 20.12.
5.00 p. m. each
per person 12 €
approx. 70 minutes
Restaurant Am Georgengarten, Heinz-Röttger-Str. 16, 06846 Dessau-Roßlau
A Christmas Journey through Europe
Inspired by Prince Franz’s Grand Tour, you will take a walk through the Georgengarten on a journey through Christmas Europe. Franz and his princely tour group were on the road for two and a half years, during which time they visited Italy, France, Holland and England.
After their return, the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Kingdom was created, in which Prince Franz and his brother Johann Georg recreated their travel impressions in order to offer the common people the possibility of an educational journey through Europe. During a walk through the Garden Kingdom, they were thus able to get to know the buildings, living conditions and customs of other countries.
So you can travel to seven countries in seventy minutes, hear familiar and unfamiliar stories about their Christmas traditions, and learn the origins of many a custom.
