Quedlinburg

If you’ve never visited, the best possible way to describe the town, is that it looks as though it stepped right out of an ornamental placemat. Narrow alleyways meet cobble-stoned streets. Monuments from medieval times sit amid half-timbered villas. Looming large over the entire scape is the Romanesque Collegiate Church of St. Servatius. The richly-adorned facades of the houses that dot the town, demonstrate the use of timbering over a period of some eight centuries. That Quedlinburg is at the edge of the Harz Mountains, adds to the town’s appeal. You can take a narrow-gauge train from here right up to the Brocken. What’s especially nice, is that what seems like a tourist train and a museum piece, is in effect a regular-operation train for the townsfolk.