Qualla: Bautzen

Bautzen: Introduction

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Derbrauni, CC BY 4.0. Ask a German what Bautzen is known for and you will get one of two answers, and neither of them is the town. The first is mustard. Bautz'ner Senf has been made here for generations and holds around 65 percent of the market across the eastern German states, which is the kind of number that turns a brand into shorthand for a place. The second answer is the prisons. Bautzen's penitentiaries were notorious throughout East Germany - Bautzen I, still in operation today, and the secret Bautzen II, where the Stasi held prisoners of conscience. Both answers are accurate. Both leave out a walled medieval town standing on a rock above the river Spree, a skyline bristling with towers, and the fact that every street sign here is written twice, in two different languages.

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Image: Derbrauni | CC BY 4.0

Bautzen: A Skyline of Towers

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephan M. Höhne, CC BY-SA 3.0. The old town sits on a plateau with the Spree curling below it, and the city wall runs along the steep embankment above the water - a defensive line that has survived largely because the ground did the hard work. Ortenburg Castle holds the high end. Within the walls, the Reichent...

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Image: Stephan M. Höhne | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bautzen: Budyšin

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephan M. Höhne, CC BY-SA 3.0. The town has a second name, and it is the older one. Budyšin appears in the written record in 1002, when a Sorbian stronghold called Budusin was named as the centre of Upper Lusatia. The Sorbs are a West Slavic people, and they have been here longer than most of the borders that ...

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Image: Stephan M. Höhne | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bautzen: The Easter Capital

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Manecke, CC BY-SA 3.0. Nothing in the Bautzen year comes close to Easter, which is why the town gets called Germany's Easter capital without much argument. Sorbian Easter eggs are the visible part, made by specialised techniques and beautiful enough to sustain their own market in the weeks before the h...

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Image: Manecke | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bautzen: What the Walls Also Held

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dr. Bernd Gross, CC BY-SA 4.0. Bautzen has been fought over repeatedly, and the town's name attaches to more than one battle. Napoleon won here in 1813. In April 1945, over ten days between the 21st and the 30th, it was fought over again as the Eastern Front closed. During the war a subcamp of the Groß-Rosen c...

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Image: Dr. Bernd Gross | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bautzen: Ponds, Water and Mustard

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Kolossos, CC BY-SA 3.0. Step outside the walls and Upper Lusatia turns flat, wet and quietly strange. The Upper Lusatian Heath and Pond Landscape biosphere reserve covers 21,800 hectares and holds more than 240 ponds, most of them dug centuries ago for carp and now doing duty as one of the better bird l...

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Image: User:Kolossos | CC BY-SA 3.0