Pirna is the front door of Saxon Switzerland, the sandstone country of the upper Elbe, and the town has a long memory of being looked at. In the 1750s the Venetian painter Bernardo Bellotto, nephew of Canaletto and working under his uncle's name, painted Pirna in a series of sharp, luminous views, and you can still recognise the town hall and the market square from his canvases. The old centre is compact, with a steep-roofed Rathaus, a Gothic hall church above the roofs and rows of pastel houses, and the whole place feels pleasantly unhurried. It has about forty thousand people, so fuel and food are easy.
The Elbe runs past just north of the old town, wide, grey-green and slow, and it is a working river with barges and paddle steamers. Above the town the Sonnenstein fortress stands on a rock, with a complicated history that includes a dark chapter in the Nazi period, and the rocky hills of Saxon Switzerland begin to rise immediately to the south. The sandstone here, pale and easily worked, was quarried for centuries and shipped down the Elbe to build Dresden, and much of that city's grandeur was cut from the cliffs you are about to ride beside.
The Saxon Wine Route starts here, running northwest along the Elbe valley to Dresden, Radebeul and Meissen, about fifty-five kilometres of gentle road. It is not a place of dramatic bends but of rhythm and scenery, with vineyards on south-facing slopes, small wine estates, castles and the Elbe on one side. Saxony is one of Germany's smallest and most northerly wine regions, and its wines, mostly dry whites like Müller-Thurgau, Riesling and Weissburgunder, are rarely exported, so you drink them here or not at all. Traffic around Dresden can be heavy, especially at rush hour, so plan accordingly.
Spring brings blossom in the orchards and early green on the vines, summer is warm and busy, and the best time for riding is September, when the harvest begins and the terraces turn gold. The Elbe valley can be misty in the morning, and in winter cold air settles in the river basin. A last coffee in Pirna's market square, with the old painter's view in front of you, is a nice way to begin.