Germany: Harz Mountains & Berlin

HARZ MOUNTAINS

Quedlinburg was quite lovely. It was very walkable and was very quiet after dark, which was fine by us. We enjoyed late afternoon and evening strolls there.

• Lodging: Hotel Zum Schloss lies below the town’s castle in a 16th century Fachwerkhaus (half-timbered building) that is a 15-minute walk from the train station and a 10-minute walk from Marktplatz, the town’s main square. Herr Mögenburg did not speak much English, but I speak a little German, so it worked out. We had simple rooms with simple decoration that were available at a good price. Breakfast was great. We both gave the place a ”10” on booking.com, pulling its average score up to a 9.1 from a 9.0.
• Highlight #1: Marktplatz. This enormous square was gorgeous, had many half-timbered buildings, had many touristy restaurants and cafes. From an aesthetic perspective, it’s one of the more attractive central squares I have encountered.
• Highlight #2: Walking around town. There are gorgeous half-timbered houses everywhere and a few enormous churches. I get many oohs and aahs when I show people my Quedlinburg photos.

- Memorable Food #1: Ratskeller. It seems many old town/city halls in Europe have a cellar that serves food and drink. This is true for Quedlinburg. Food was hearty German fare with a few lighter options. The servers were quite kind to find a table for us on a busy night – the next few couples who arrived were turned away.
- Memorable Food #2: Türkische Riviera. Döner, Döner, Döner! We ate here a couple of nights – good and inexpensive Turkish food.
- Memorable Food #3: Manufaktur Keks Art. A bakery that served delicious tomato soup and delightful sweets at a good price.

Daytrips

• Goslar. The Harz Mountains lie on the former border between East and West Germany. Goslar had the good fortune of being on the west side of the border. It was clearly more developed than the former East German towns, and it seemed like there was a bank on every corner (not true in the other towns). The highlight here was the Kaiserpfalz, a palace originally built in the 11th century AD that served as a regional location for Holy Roman emperors to hold court. It was refurbished in the late 1800s, and its second story Great Hall was adorned with paintings that marked great moments in Germany history – moments like Charlemagne watching as Saxon pagan gods/idols were pulled down, Luther standing before the pope, and King Wilhelm I and Otto von Bismarck uniting the German peoples into the German Empire. Hitler held a couple of events at the palace to try to tie his movement to the “First” and “Second” Reichs. Funny. There was nothing about that in the exhibition. The nearby Paulaner Wirsthaus provided a hearty lunch. As in Quedlinburg, there were many amazing half-timbered buildings.
• Wernigerode. We visited Goslar and Wernigerode on the same day. The town’s drop-dead gorgeous 16th century Rathaus was… behind scaffolding and a covering. Sad. We hiked up to the town’s impressive castle. We were there too late to see the interior, but the views over the town were nice.

“The Coronation of Henry the First”

Thus Heinrich der Vogler (Henry the Fowler).

• Thale. Thale was my second favorite place in the Harz Mountains behind Quedlinburg. Apparently, it got bombed heavily during WWII, so it does not have the half-timbered charm of the other towns of the Harz, but it had gorgeous nature. We took a nice 6-mile hike from Thale to Treseburg, catching a bus back to Thale where we had a nice lunch before taking the gondola up to Hexentanzplatz, where witches danced back in pagan days and where capitalists built a witch theme park for children in modern times. Erich Honecker would be so disappointed. Once again, we got to experience nice views over the surrounding area from the top of the mountain.
• Neinstedt. More of a village than a town. We were primarily here to hike a bit on a path along the Teufelsmauer (Devil’s Wall), an impressive natural, interrupted wall of stone that extends 12 miles. Formations are made up of weathered sandstone and are super cool. The Königsstein formation was impressive.
• The Brocken. The Brocken is the highest peak in the Harz Mountains, as well as in northern Germany. It was occupied by US troops from 1945 to 1947 but was turned over to the Soviets due to it falling into their occupation zone as agreed upon at the Yalta Conference and confirmed at the Potsdam Conference. It remained a recreational area until 1961, when it was declared a military zone and converted into a spy operation (among other things) that could listen to every communication going into West Berlin and could “hear” as far as the English Channel. A narrow-gauge steam engine train took us up to the Brocken; that ride was fun. Sadly, almost all the trees are dead above a certain level due to climate change and a beetle (John, I think, but we all know it was really Yoko). The top of the mountain was cool in a metaphysical sense and freezing in a physical sense. It was worth a visit, though, for this WWII and Cold War enthusiast.

BERLIN

Berlin has long been my favorite city. I was saddened on this trip, though, to see that homelessness and mental health/drug issues seem to have significantly increased since my last visit. Like many other communities, tents of the homeless are starting to pop up in public parks (new for me to see in Berlin), and there was an unusual number of people shouting/wandering aimlessly/looking scary on the U-bahn and S-bahn.

• Lodging: mittendrin boutique hotel. Anne and I wanted to stay one more time with our friend Sabine, whom Anne had not seen since around 2018. mittendrin is a 4-room B&B in a former West Berlin building built somewhere around 1910. Great rooms. Nice common space. Wonderful breakfast shared with other guests at a communal table. Rick definitely would use the word “convivial” to describe breakfast.
• Highlight #1: The Berlin Philharmonic. Three pieces were performed. After the first one, I leaned over to Anne and said, “Gimmicky.” After the second one, which was commissioned by the Philharmonic and premiered at the performance, I leaned over to Anne and said, “I liked it!” The third piece was an old favorite, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. It was glorious!

- Highlight #2: Soviet War Memorial at Schönholzer Heide. There are three major WWII memorials in Berlin. I had seen the one at the edge of the Tiergarten and the one at Treptower Park. But I had not seen the one at Schönholzer Heide. The entrance is marked by a wall that reads “BARE YOUR HEAD! HERE ARE SOVIET SOLDIERS, HEROES OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR OF 1941-1945, LAID TO ETERNAL REST. THEY GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR YOUR FUTURE!” Whereas the Tiergarten has a statue of a Russian solider holding his hand over 2000 buried troops and Treptower Park has a statue of a proud Russian soldier holding a German child while a crushed swastika lies beneath his feet on a mass grave of 6000 Soviet troops, the Schönholzer memorial has a sculpture of a dead soldier on a slab with the personification of Mother Russia standing above him; 13,200 troops are buried here. All three memorials are impressive and, to me, certainly worth seeing.

• Highlight #3: Tour with Robert Sommer. Any trip to Berlin for me includes meeting up with Robert to see something cool. This time, we wandered around Kreuzberg, the poorest area of West Berlin that was inhabited once by guest workers brought to the city after WWII to address labor shortages, but it also had a reputation for drugs and alternative lifestyles in the 70’s and 80’s. Robert lived here for a bit as a late teen/young adult and told us about his rambunctious days when he enjoyed rioting against police, especially on May 1, Labor Day. We discussed architecture, history, alternative culture, gentrification, coffee shops, and sundry other topics during our walk. A tour with Robert is always cool because I get to hear modern German history from someone who lived it.
• Memorable Food #1: [Taverna Ousia][1]. A cozy, warm Greek restaurant with delicious mezza located in a residential area of Charlottenburg. Anne is vegetarian, and we stuck with vegetarian foods. Everything was great. And I got a delicious Spezi, too (mixture of Coke and orange Fanta that tastes far better in Germany than in the US – I blame high-fructose corn syrup). We were supposed to eat there with Sabine, but she developed a cold and did not feel like going. Very non-touristy.
• Memorable Food #2: Cao Cao. Sabine was eager for us to try this Vietnamese restaurant near the B&B. Food was indeed quite good and very fresh. The server spoke little English but did say, “Tip is not included” when he dropped the check!

I’ll end the trip report with a quick flashback to the opening Quedblinburg story:

Anne and I decided to hit a bookstore we passed every morning on our walk to the train station. Not surprisingly, there was no English section in a bookstore in a town where a resident seemed kind of amazed that people were speaking English. After that stop, we decided to explore a part of Quedlinburg we had not yet explored. After walking for a while, we got a little hungry. We circled back to the Turkish restaurant mentioned above which had great Google reviews. We ordered, sat at a table, and were eating our food when in walks… Michael, our buddy from the statue! It had been a couple of hours since we met him. What are the chances? He kindly chatted a bit with us again. He ended our time with another “God bless you;” I returned the same to him. It was a nice connection. And writing this reminds me that I need to get a postcard sent to him.

Conclusion

It seems like I always say this as I conclude a trip report, but I enjoyed this trip. Maybe I’m just easy to please! What made this a particularly good trip, though, was spending time with my old friend Anne, hanging out with my relatively new friend Rob, encountering Michael, and catching up with a couple of people in Berlin who, through repeated interactions, have become friends. My travel philosophy holds true, once again. Sights are cool; people are cooler.

@Sam... yes, Henry the Fowler. I started to put that in the trip report, but cut it to try to shorten the trip report -- didn't do such a great job of that!