US President Barack Obama is in Germany for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
He flew into the eastern city of Dresden after delivering a centrepiece speech to the Muslim world during a high profile visit to Egypt.
Dresden, which was heavily bombed during the Second World War and only finally rebuilt after German reunification, was carefully chosen as the backdrop for Mr Obama's visit to Germany as much for its symbolism as for its Baroque palaces and soaring stone dome.
The city is considered by many as Germany's cultural jewel of the east and is also close to the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial Mr Obama plans to visit later.
Though the trip will not take him to the German capital Berlin, Chancellor Merkel said she was pleased the President has expressed an interest in the nation's former eastern states.
A spokesperson said Dresden serves as a symbol of the destruction of war but also of reconstruction.
Mr Obama's two-day European tour will also see him visit Normandy, France, to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
He will also spend time in the capital, Paris, with French President Nicholas Sarkozy, with whom Mr Obama said he had a "wonderful relationship."
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