If a person can get sick of visiting cute little German towns that are full of half-timbered houses, it hasn’t happened to me yet.
We spent a weekend visiting some towns in the Harz Mountains area of Germany and there are a few towns there that are just chock-a-block full of half-timbered houses.
Because there’s so much to share about them, this this the first of two separate blog posts about the trip.
We started off our visit with a stop in a town called Gernrode to see the St. Cyriakus church, originally built in the 10th century.
One of the most amazing features in the church are the wall and ceiling murals.
The second thing we wanted to see in that town was the cuckoo clock factory, which supposedly has the biggest cuckoo clock in the world outside of the Black Forest.
And there it is.
You may notice that the bird is clutching a sign in its beak though.
It was written in German and the translation is “Dear Visitors – I have a problem but the doctor has already been ordered!”
It was signed “Ihr Kuckuck” (your cuckoo).
So, we didn’t get to see it in action and I suspect the sign has been there for a while.
You can then walk through the factory for a small fee to see various types of clocks and even an employee or two making a clock.
You can also design and purchase your own clock.
That right there is Sean’s dream clock.
Deer head, antlers, rifles, dead rabbit, the whole works.
A clock like that can run you a good 1,000 Euro.
We already have a nice, pleasant, non-hunting-themed cuckoo clock, so we thankfully left the factory empty-handed.
The town of Quedlinburg, which was our next stop, was founded way back in the 8th century.
The Collegiate Church, Castle and Old Town of Quedlinburg comprise a UNESCO site, with the old town being one of the best-preserved medieval renaissance towns in Europe.
That house, which was inhabited until 1965 but has housed the Fachwerkmuseum im Ständerbau (Museum of Half-Timbered Architecture) since 1976, was built in the year 1310.
It was once considered the oldest house in town, but you’ll find out in a few minutes why that changed.
It’s also unusual in that the beams run vertically straight from the foundation to the roof.
There are no crossed beams that are typical in most half-timbered houses such as these.
Quedlinburg luckily was not significantly damaged in either World War I or II, but it became part of East Germany after World War II until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Although the town is known for its more than 2,000 half-timbered houses, it also has fabulous buildings in other architectural styles including the renaissance town hall.
The building was first mentioned in the year 1310, but its present appearance dates back to 1616.
If you’ve spent any time traveling around Germany, you’ve probably run into at least one Roland statue.
Roland was a legendary military leader from the 8th century who served under the emperor Charlemagne.
This Roland statue in front of Quedlinburg’s town hall is the smallest in all of Germany.
It dates from 1427 and was damaged 50 years later.
The broken pieces were stored in the town hall until the statue was finally restored in 1869.
Just around the corner from this, we stopped for lunch at a place that had good food but terribly rude service.
Sean had the TIPPLE OF THE DAY with his lunch.
It’s a brand of beer called Reudnitzer, which Sean proclaimed as delicious, just like all other German beers.
After lunch we headed over to St. Benedickt’s Church, also known as the Market Church.
The church was filled with beautiful details and I liked that one in particular.
It’s a statue of the Archangel Gabriel, sculpted in 1595, supporting a carved pulpit.
Sadly, the Fachwerkmuseum that you read about earlier had the title of “oldest building in town” stripped away from it by this stone house.
During renovation in 2008, it was discovered that the stone house was built between the years 1215 and 1301, so it was finished almost 10 years before that Fachwerkmuseum building was.
Notice the green shutters on the buildings on the right side of this little alley.
You may remember something similar from the Alkmaar blog.
This particular alley used to be filled with shoemakers, who would drop those shutters down to display their goods on them.
At night the shutters were closed up, and this is supposedly where the expression “closing time” originated.
The buildings in this courtyard date from the 16th and 17th centuries and are being restored.
The structure in the middle is a pigeon house from the 18th century.
To cap off the visit to Quedlinburg we walked uphill past some beautiful houses to get to the castle and Collegiate Church.
As we were walking along the outside of the castle walls that were to our right, we heard something making a lot of noise.
Turns out it was that kitty trying to get our attention. When Sean tried to pet it, it took a swipe at him. I think the cat found it all very amusing.
We paid our entrance fee for the Collegiate Church and received some English information on laminated plastic cards.
The church has a treasury, which normally doesn’t interest me too much because they’re all pretty much the same.
It’s like yeah yeah, there’s a bishop’s robe and there’s a golden chalice and there’s some ornate rings and then I get bored.
This treasury had something that I found fascinating though.
That alabaster jug is supposedly one that was used by Jesus during the wedding at Cana to turn water into wine.
The Quedlinburg treasures also have an unfortunate American connection.
During World War II, the treasures had been placed in a cave for safekeeping.
They were discovered by First Lieutenant Joe T. Maedor of the U.S. Army.
While he was assigned to guard them, he stole twelve pieces and mailed them one by one to his home in Texas.
After he died in 1980, his family put some of the pieces up for auction and they were recognized by art experts as being part of the Quedlingburg treasures.
They were purchased by the German Cultural Foundation who brought the pieces back to Germany.
The rest of the collection was eventually purchased from the family for a million dollars.
Personally I think they should have done the right thing and just given the collection back without taking money for it, but I’ll leave you to form your own opinion about it.
We didn’t end up going into the castle but we did walk around the grounds and got some nice views of the town below.
The castle gardens are also fabulous and you can catch glimpses of the Collegiate Church through the trees.
After leaving the gardens we headed back to the car and drove to the town of Goslar to check into our hotel.
You can read all about Goslar in the next post!
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