Brühl's Terrace

Brühl's Terrace (German: Brühlsche Terrasse) is a historic architectural ensemble in Dresden, Germany. Nicknamed "The Balcony of Europe", the terrace stretches high above the shore of the river Elbe in a city which is quite large as measured by area relative to its half a million inhabitants. Located north of the recently rebuilt Neumarkt Square and the Frauenkirche, is one of the favourite inner-city places of both locals and tourists for walking, people watching, and having a coffee.

The present-day terrace was part of the city's fortifications, rebuilt upon the 1546/47 Schmalkaldic War at the behest of Elector Maurice of Saxony and his successors Augustus and Christian. The name Brühl's Terrace is a reference to Count Heinrich von Brühl, Minister of Elector Frederick Augustus II, who from 1737 had a city palace with a gallery, a library and adjacent gardens built on the location. In 1747 the whole terrace was given to him by the Saxon elector as a gift for the innovative introduction of a betterment tax.

After the Saxon defeat at the Battle of Leipzig and the occupation by Russian troops, military governor Prince Nikolai Grigorjevich Repnin-Wolkonski ordered the opening to the public in 1814. He charged the architect Gottlob Friedrich Thormeyer with the building of a flight of stairs at the western end to reach the terrace from Castle Square and Augustus Bridge. The Brühl Palace was demolished in the course of the building of the Saxon Ständehaus in 1900.

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