Visiting the Grand Budapest Hotel filming locations in real life

Have you ever watched the Grand Budapest Hotel and thought you would love to visit the beautiful filming locations in real life? Well, you’re not alone. That is pretty much the number one reason I wanted to visit Görlitz this year.

Görlitz might not be a town you’ve ever heard of, but it’s definitely one you have seen a lot before – even if you didn’t know it. Found on the border of Poland, in the German state of Saxony (coincidentally one of my favourite areas of Germany), Görlitz has become famous as a filming location, thanks to its beautiful and untouched old town. Nicknamed Görliwood, the town was even named the European Filming Location of the Decade in 2017. And one of the films to make the best use of the town is Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Why do I love The Grand Budapest Hotel?
The Grand Budapest Hotel is a film I fell for the first time I watched it. Now I’m not the world’s biggest movie buff by any means, but just watching such an elaborate and elegantly-produced piece of cinema was enough to make me realise this was something special. In preparation for my trip, I re-watched the film (thank you, Netflix) and I realised that one of the things I like most about it is the way it encompasses the romanticism of Central Europe – shots of wintry scenes, far away towers, narrow cobbled streets, hill-top castles and mountains towering in the background. For me, this all summarises the beauty of the region and exactly what makes small towns like Görlitz such fantastic places to explore.

Where was the Grand Budapest Hotel filmed?

Mostly in the town of Görlitz. But several other locations in Saxony were also used, including Dresden and the Bastei rock formations in the Saxon Switzerland National Park. I ended up visiting (and re-visiting) quite a few on my last trip to Saxony, so here are a few of the locations that are easiest to visit – and an idea of what they look like in real life (on a very grey and rainy weekend in March).

Read more here: Top 10 things to see and do in Görlitz

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The Grand Budapest Filming Locations in Görlitz

The Grand Budapest Hotel – exterior

Firstly, I’m going to have to burst a few bubbles: the Grand Budapest Hotel doesn’t really exist. Well, at least not from the outside (but we’ll get to that in a sec). The exterior of the hotel was just a model. It’s said to be inspired by elegant Spa resorts of the period, such as Hotel Pupp in closeby Karlovy Vary (more on that later, too), but there seem to be a few different theories as to which hotel is the closest.

Görlitzer Warenhaus – the interior of the Grand Budapest Hotel

While the exterior of the hotel may not have existed, it’s probably slightly more surreal that the interior did – or does, in fact. Görlitzer Warenhaus, also known as Kaufhaus Görlitz (Görlitz Department Store) was used for many of the interior scenes of the hotel (both for its original state and for the 1980s converted version). The lobby and shoot-out scenes were all shot here, but notably other locations in Görlitz were used for the baths and the dining hall.

The building has a colourful history itself. It was opened in 1913, the building was once a huge and thriving department store in the centre of Görlitz, itself once a huge and thriving trading town. As the population of the town declined, so did the business for the department store, finally closing in 2012. Since the filming of Grand Budapest, there have been lots of plans to return the building to its former glory and it has since been bought by a new owner.

However in 2019, the site is still largely empty, although it has been used previously for several events including a fashion show. The building is in a state of disrepair, but that somehow adds to the charm. The building is found on Demianiplatz.

Is the Görlitzer Warenhaus open to visit?
Yes – on Thursday and Friday afternoons (plus one weekend a month), the ground floor is open to visitors. There is also a small gift shop and some limited information about the building’s history on display. I was informed that private tours can be arranged in advance, but it sounds like they are possibly quite pricey. If I’d known about the private tours, I would have definitely tried to arrange one.

Old Lutz Cemetery – Wählt Thälmann Kulisse

Now this is another location with a bit of a backstory. Even today, there is huge painted text on the side of this nondescript brick wall. The full text in the present-day location reads WÄHLT THÄLMANN!, meaning ‘Vote Thälmann!’ (I was forced to crop the text myself to get the straight-on image I wanted). The Thälmann in question was the leader of the socialist party in Germany for much of the Weimar Republic who was shot on Hitler’s orders in 1944. The text itself dates to 1985 and was created for a film that the former East German government made about the socialist martyr. Evidently, the residents of Görliwood wanted to keep it.

It seems fairly likely to me that this gave Wes Anderson the idea for his use of large-scale type for any establishing scenes in the film, including the initial shot of the Old Lutz Cemetery, which I am fairly certain was shot here, with a different background added. If that shot wasn’t captured here, I think those inside the cemetery at least were.

Görlitz Old Town – Mendl’s exterior

The exterior of Mendl’s evaded me if I’m honest – I confused it with another street. However the exterior and the street that Saoirse Ronan’s Agatha cycles down can be found on Fischmarktstraße in Görlitz. The interior can be found in Dresden (see below).

Additional scenes in Görlitz

Above you can see the street where Zero collects the papers and reads of the death of Madame D. This was shot on the corner of Langenstrasse and Buettnerstrasse, with the Nikolaiturm (Nikolai Tower) in the background.

Visiting the filming locations of the Grand Budapest Hotel in Görlitz
If you’re interested in visiting Görliwood, then head to the Tourist Information Centre in Görlitz when you arrive – they have a great map of filming locations and also provide a guided tour during the warmer Spring and Summer months. More on Görliwood here.

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The Grand Budapest filming locations in Dresden

As the capital of Saxony, and the closest major city to Görlitz, Dresden unsurprisingly gets in on the action, with a couple of scenes from the film shot here.

Read more: 15 photos to make you fall in love with Dresden

 

Dresdner Zwinger – the Kunstmuseum

Located in Dresden’s incredibly photogenic old town, the Zwinger is a former royal palace used for exhibitions and as an orangery. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, it stands in as the Kunstmuseum (literally ‘Art Museum’) where Jeff Goldblum meets his fate at the hands of Willem Dafoe’s assassin. It’s almost a shame they make it seem so ominous to be honest because it’s a lovely place.

Dresdner Molkerei Gebrüder Pfund – Mendl’s

One filming location I wouldn’t recommend visiting is the Dresdner Molkerei Gebrüder Pfund, which stood in for the interior of Mendl’s. As the name suggests, the shop is actually found in Dresden and is not a bakery, but a dairy shop. They sell a variety of cheeses and – bizarrely – cosmetics. The ceramic tiles and decorated ceiling that are seen briefly in the film are very impressive in real life, but the tiny shop was absolutely packed when I visited – thanks to the three coach tours that had pulled up outside. Photos are also not allowed. One to skip.

Interested in more famous film locations? Check out my day trip to Ait Ben Haddou.

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The Grand Budapest filming locations in Saxon Switzerland

The Bastei

Located south of Dresden and bordering the Czech Republic is a national park known as Saxon Switzerland thanks to its dramatic mountain scenery. The star of the show here is the Basteibrücke, the oldest structure in the world built purely for tourism. The bridge traverses the Bastei, a series of sandstone columns which line the Elbe. This was the setting for Zero and Agatha’s wedding towards the close of the film (although traces of Bastei-like formations can be seen throughout the alpine scenes).

On my visit, one tourist very stubbornly decided to spend ages sat in a particularly picturesque spot, ruining everyone’s photos in the process. Unforgivable.

Read more: My guide to exploring Saxon Switzerland

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Inspiration for The Grand Budapest Hotel in the Czech Republic

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Now I’m not sure whether any filming was actually done in the Czech Republic (I assume not), but it seems safe to say that Wes Anderson did at least get some inspiration from Karlovy Vary, a spa town in the north of the country, just a hour or two’s drive from Dresden. Formerly known as Carlsbad, the town was (and still is) a hugely popular spa town, filled with luxury hotels and towering town houses with grand facades.

Here you’ll find both Hotel Pupp and the Bristol Hotel, both of which are said to have inspired the façade of the Grand Budapest Hotel.

Another recognisable icon of the spa town is the Deer Jump statue – a bronze figure of a deer which looks out over the valley town from the hills above. The icon can be seen several times in the film, including some key establishing shots of Zubrowka.

About the images
All stills from the film The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) were taken from ScreenMusings.org, which uses the following disclaimer:
Disclaimer: 1. All screencaps and images on this site are the copyright of their respective movie studio and are reproduced here under the Fair Use doctrine. Any usage from here forth, should be restricted to non-comercial purposes. 2. The stills contained in this gallery have been cropped and had compression applied and are not a truly accurate representation of the video quality inherent in the DVD or Blu-ray transfer.