Meissen Another popular tourist sight is the world-famous Meissen porcelain factory. From spring to autumn, several festivals take place in Meissen, such as the pottery market or the "Weinfest", which celebrates the wine harvest. Meissen wine is produced at the vineyards in the river valley ("Elbtal") around the town, part of the Saxonian wine region, one of the northernmost in Europe. Meissen is twinned with: Meissen Meissen (in German orthography: "Meißen", ) is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the
Vienna porcelain Ottoman Empire continued, by the 1860s the factory was suffering from increased competition from Bohemian factories in particular, and was eventually closed by the Austrian parliament in 1864, with the moulds and other equipment being given to the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. The wares are sometimes called "old Vienna" (or "Alt Wien" in German). The name was revived in 1923 with the foundation of the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory Augarten. Wares were hard-paste porcelain, and always of very high quality. Like most factories in the German-speaking world, it was founded with expertise provided by key workers enticed from Meissen porcelain,