Dessau Day Trip from Berlin: The Bauhaus, the Trains and the Monday Trap
The red regional train leaves Berlin Hauptbahnhof at 07:32, and a little over two hours later, after one change in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, you step out at Dessau Hauptbahnhof. Take the west exit and the Bauhaus Building is eight minutes away on foot. A Dessau day trip from Berlin is the closest you can get to the Bauhaus where it actually happened: the school moved here from Weimar in 1925 and built its own building, its teachers' houses and a housing estate before it was pushed out in 1932.
It is an easy trip on paper. In practice three things decide how much of it you see: the weekday, the season and a rail closure that changes the route until 20 November. I have watched people arrive on a Monday in November to locked doors, so here is the version of the day that works.
The glass workshop wing of the Bauhaus Building, eight minutes on foot from the west exit of Dessau Hauptbahnhof.
Is a Dessau day trip from Berlin worth it?
If you care about design or architecture, yes. Berlin has Bauhaus history, which I cover in my guide to Bauhaus and modernism in Berlin, but Dessau has the buildings the school designed for itself. The Bauhaus sites in Dessau are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the three you came for sit within about 2 km of the station:
The Bauhaus Building (Walter Gropius, 1925/26), the workshop wing, studio block and bridge you know from photos.
The Masters' Houses on Ebertallee, where Gropius, Kandinsky, Klee, Feininger and Moholy-Nagy lived.
The Bauhaus Museum Dessau, a glass box from 2019 in the town centre with the foundation's collection of more than 1,000 objects.
If you only want one famous facade for a photo, it is a long way to go. Dessau rewards people who want to walk through the rooms, not people collecting views. Everyone else is better served by a slower Berlin day, or by Potsdam, which I compare in my guide to the best day trips from Berlin.
The trains: one change in Wittenberg until 20 November
The direct regional line, the RE7, normally runs from Berlin to Dessau in about 1 hour 30 minutes. From 19 September to 20 November 2026 the section between Bad Belzig and Dessau is closed for construction and replaced by buses, according to the VBB. The faster way during the works is the RE3 to Lutherstadt Wittenberg and the RB51 from there:
Out: an RE3 leaves Berlin Hauptbahnhof about every hour (07:32, 08:40, 09:31, 10:40 on a normal day) and every connection reaches Dessau at 49 minutes past the hour. Door to door from Hauptbahnhof it is about 2 hours 10 minutes.
Back: the RB51 leaves Dessau at 10 minutes past every second hour (14:10, 16:10, 18:10, 20:10) and connects to an RE3 that reaches Berlin Hauptbahnhof about 2 hours 10 minutes later.
The bus option: the RE7 replacement bus via Bad Belzig leaves Dessau at 5 past the odd hours and takes closer to 2 hours 50 minutes to Berlin. I would only use it if you miss the RB51.
From 21 November the RE7 runs through again, but until 12 December it still starts and ends at Berlin-Charlottenburg because the Stadtbahn through the centre is closed to regional trains. Take the S-Bahn to Charlottenburg and the RE7 gets you to Dessau in about 1 hour 30 minutes, with a train back at 5 past every hour. After the timetable change on 13 December, check the times again. All of this was checked on 17 October 2026 in the VBB journey planner.
Which ticket covers Dessau
Dessau is in Saxony-Anhalt, which rules out the ticket most people use for Brandenburg trips:
The Deutschlandticket (63 euros a month) covers the RE3, RB51 and RE7 all the way. If you already hold one, the trip costs nothing extra.
The Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket (51 euros, plus 12 euros per extra person) covers regional trains for the day, but on weekdays it is only valid from 09:00. That makes the 09:31 RE3 your first usable train, which puts you in Dessau at 11:49.
The Brandenburg-Berlin-Ticket stops at the state border, so it does not reach Dessau or Wittenberg.
An ICE to Wittenberg saves about half an hour on the first leg but needs a normal DB ticket.
My guide to train tickets for day trips from Berlin has the longer comparison, and the Deutschlandticket for visitors post explains the monthly subscription trap.
Which day to go: the Monday and winter trap
This is the part that ruins trips. The opening hours of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation change with the season:
March to October: the Bauhaus Building and the Masters' Houses open every day, 10:00 to 17:00. The Bauhaus Museum opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00, so on a Monday you get two of the three.
November to February: all three open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 17:00. On a winter Monday everything is shut.
Holidays: all buildings are closed from 24 to 26 December and from 31 December to 1 January.
The guided tours matter more than they look, because they take you into rooms you cannot enter on your own. From March to October there are German tours daily, and English tours only on Fridays: 12:00 in the Bauhaus Building, 13:30 at the Masters' Houses and 15:30 in the museum. From November to February there are no public English tours at all. That makes Friday 23 October and Friday 30 October the last English tour days of this year.
The Bauhaus Museum Dessau sits in the town centre, 11 minutes east of the station, on the opposite side from the Bauhaus Building.
My advice: go on a Tuesday to Friday, and on a Friday in October if you want the English tours. Saturday and Sunday work too, with German tours only.
The walking route in Dessau
The station sits between the two halves of the visit, which is the one thing to understand before you start. The Bauhaus Building and the Masters' Houses are west of the tracks. The museum is east of them, in the centre.
Station west exit to the Bauhaus Building: 660 m, about 8 minutes. Follow the Bauhaus signs on Bauhausstraße.
Bauhaus Building to the Masters' Houses: 830 m along Ebertallee, about 10 minutes, through pine trees.
Masters' Houses back to the station: 1.3 km, about 16 minutes.
Station to the Bauhaus Museum: 900 m east, about 11 minutes, through the exit towards the city centre.
The full Bauhaus complex from the west: workshop wing on the left, the studio block where students lived on the right.
The route matters because the museum keeps one more hour in summer, while the two older sites close at 17:00 all year. So start west and finish at the museum. In winter, when everything closes at 17:00, I do it the same way and simply leave the museum for after lunch.
The planner below does the arithmetic for your date. Pick the day, slide to the train you want to catch out of Berlin, and it lays your arrival, the walks, the tours and the trains home on one timeline.
How long each stop takes and what it costs
These are my times for a careful visit, not a race through the rooms:
Bauhaus Building: 60 to 90 minutes, longer with the 11:00 tour. Admission 14 euros.
Masters' Houses: about an hour for the houses that are open inside. Admission 10 euros.
Bauhaus Museum Dessau: about 90 minutes. Admission 10 euros, and the permanent exhibition sells tickets with a time slot, so book that one online before you travel.
If you plan to see all three, the all-in-one ticket at 29 euros (19 euros reduced) covers them plus the Konsum Building in Törten and is valid for three consecutive days. Visitors aged 18 and under go free. Public tours cost from 7 euros on top of an admission ticket. Prices and slots are on the foundation's ticket page.
The Masters' Houses stand under the pines on Ebertallee. There are no lockers here, so leave bags at the Bauhaus Building first.
Bags are the small trap. You cannot take rucksacks, umbrellas or coats into the exhibition rooms, and the Masters' Houses have no lockers. Use the lockers in the basement of the Bauhaus Building before you walk up Ebertallee, and collect your things on the way back.
Where to eat
The Café-Bistro in the basement of the Bauhaus Building is open Monday to Saturday from 08:00 to 22:00 and Sunday from 08:00 to 17:00, so it covers both a late breakfast and a late lunch. The historic canteen upstairs is temporarily closed, and the small kiosk at the Masters' Houses only runs from April to October.
The Kornhaus by Carl Fieger sits on the Elbe, a 23-minute walk north of the Masters' Houses.
If the day is long and dry, the Kornhaus is the extra I like most: a 1929/30 restaurant pavilion by the Bauhaus architect Carl Fieger, right on the river dike, about 1.8 km beyond the Masters' Houses. Check whether the restaurant is open before you walk out, because it is a long walk back to the station.
Törten: the extra for a second visit
The Dessau-Törten housing estate, built by Gropius's office from 1926 to 1928, is 4.6 km south of the station. It is worth it if you have read about Bauhaus housing and want to see how people still live in it. It does not fit comfortably into a first day trip from Berlin with the Wittenberg change. The Konsum Building there is open only from March to October, and the public tour of the estate runs at 15:00 in that season.
The Törten estate is still lived in. Look from the street and keep the gardens private.
The all-in-one ticket is valid for three days, so a second visit or an overnight stay is the honest way to add Törten.
My plan for the day
In October and early November, on a Tuesday to Friday, I take the 07:32 RE3 from Hauptbahnhof and arrive at 09:49. That is ten minutes before the doors open. Bauhaus Building first with the 11:00 tour, the Café-Bistro at 12:15, the Masters' Houses around 13:00, then back past the station to the museum for its last two hours. The 18:10 RB51 gets me to Berlin Hauptbahnhof at 20:20. With a Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket on a weekday, the same plan starts with the 09:31 and drops the tour.
If you are in Berlin for a few days and this is your first visit, keep Dessau for day three or four, after the centre. My Berlin Then and Now walk from Alexanderplatz to Hackescher Markt covers the city's own layers in about 2.5 hours, and you can book it here. When the RE7 timetable changes again in December, my weekly newsletter is where I will say so.
Image credits
Source and licence details for the 6 photographs used in this article.
The workshop wing of the Bauhaus Building in Dessau: Leojng, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Bauhaus Museum Dessau on Kavalierstraße: Michael Deutsch, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Bauhaus Building seen from the west: JensKunstfreund, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
One of the Masters' Houses on Ebertallee: Spyrosdrakopoulos, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Kornhaus on the Elbe at sunset: JensKunstfreund, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Terraced houses in the Dessau-Törten estate: qwesy qwesy, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.