Altenberg lives with a hole in the ground, and is proud of it. The Pinge, a huge funnel of collapsed workings beside the town, opened up in 1620 when old tin mine tunnels caved in, and later collapses widened it into the crater you can look into today. Tin was the reason for everything here: the town grew around the mines in the fifteenth century, and the Zinnwald workings a few kilometres up the ridge, right on the Czech border, kept digging into modern times. The whole district is part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, a UNESCO listing shared between Saxony and Bohemia.
Down in the valley at Dippoldiswalde there is a second chapter, older and stranger. Medieval silver mines were found under the town streets, thirteenth-century galleries with tool marks still fresh in the rock, which were explored and studied after a surprise collapse in 2008. Together the two places show how mining here ran from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, silver first, then tin, later even lithium prospecting at Zinnwald.
Altenberg is a town of about five thousand people at around seven hundred metres, so it is cold, windy and often foggy, and it has the proper services of a winter-sports place: fuel, bakeries, guesthouses, and a bobsleigh track that has hosted world championships. The old mine buildings, including a stamp mill, are open to visitors, and the museum explains how ore became metal. Nothing here is dainty, which is part of its charm.
Riding up from Dresden through the Müglitz or Weißeritz valleys, you climb steadily through spruce forest and clearings, and the corners get a little tighter the higher you go. Surfaces are generally good, though frost heave leaves a few ripples in spring. At the top, the plateau opens into pasture and heath with long views toward the Czech Teplice basin, and the border crossing at Zinnwald leads straight down toward Teplice and the Bohemian Central Uplands. Autumn is bright and crisp, while winter snow can close the high roads, so check before you leave.