Holiday in Goerlitz

About Goerlitz

Görlitz on the Neisse is Germany's easternmost city and has the best-preserved historical old town in the country — around 4,000 monuments from Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Gründerzeit, and Art Nouveau have survived the Second World War almost unscathed. It's no wonder that Hollywood and international film productions have discovered the city as a backdrop: Görlitz is nicknamed Görliwood. Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, and The Book Thief were filmed here. The Art Nouveau department store at Demianiplatz with its magnificent staircase hall served as the Grand Budapest Hotel and is an architectural gem that can be visited. The old town extends from the Untermarkt with the Schönhof (the oldest Renaissance building in Germany, 1526) over the Obermarkt with the Reichenbacher Tower to the Peterskirche with the legendary Sonnenorgel — a Baroque instrument whose pipes are arranged in a sun shape. The Heilig-Grab-Anlage is a unique late Gothic replica of the holy sites of Jerusalem from the 15th century. Crossing the old town bridge, you can walk to Zgorzelec — the Polish sister city, which was the eastern district of Görlitz until 1945. The German-Polish border running through the city makes Görlitz a fascinating place of European history.