Goslar is a town of about 50,000 people on the northern edge of the Harz mountains, and it is rich for one reason: the Rammelsberg, the ore mountain on its southern shoulder, was mined more or less continuously for over a thousand years. That silver paid for the Imperial Palace, the eleven churches and the fifteen hundred half-timbered houses, and in 1992 UNESCO inscribed the mine and the old town TOGETHER, as one thing, because they are one thing. The mine closed in 1988. The town it built is still here.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, Roman Trail earns a small commission at no extra cost to you.
We receive a fee when you get a quote from World Nomads using this link. We do not represent World Nomads. This is not a recommendation to buy travel insurance.
What Is Here
THE RAMMELSBERG IS A MINE YOU GO INSIDE, AND THAT IS WHY YOU COME. The third image is the surface plant. Underground tours run on a mine railway and on foot through workings of different centuries, you are given a helmet and a jacket, and it is about 12 degrees down there whatever the weather is doing above. Over a thousand years of continuous extraction, closed in 1988, now a museum and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Tours have fixed times and limited places and the longer ones book out, so this is the one thing here worth arranging before you arrive.
THE KAISERPFALZ IS THE LARGEST SURVIVING ROMANESQUE SECULAR BUILDING IN GERMANY, which is a mouthful and worth unpacking: almost everything of this age that survived is a church, because churches were maintained. This is a palace, built in the eleventh century, where the emperors held court when the Reich had no capital and the court simply moved. The second image is it. Inside, the Hall of the Emperors is covered in enormous nineteenth century historicist murals, which are not medieval and are worth seeing as what they are, a newly unified Germany painting itself a past.
ABOUT FIFTEEN HUNDRED HALF-TIMBERED HOUSES, AND THE SQUARE IS THE SHOWPIECE. The first image is an ordinary Goslar street. On the Marktplatz, the Kaiserworth is the old cloth merchants' guildhall with a row of grotesque figures along its facade, the glockenspiel on the treasury building plays out the mining story four times a day, and the Brusttuch nearby carries the carved panels everybody photographs. The whole old town is walkable in an afternoon and almost all of it is original.
THE HARZ IS THE REASON TO STAY MORE THAN A DAY, AND IT IS NOT IN THE CONDITION THE PHOTOGRAPHS SHOW. This is the single most useful thing in this post. Since around 2018, drought followed by a bark beetle explosion has killed spruce across very large areas of the Harz, and what stands on many slopes now is grey dead timber, clear-felled ground and young regrowth rather than dark closed forest. It is a real landscape and in places a striking one, and it is also genuinely shocking if you arrive expecting the brochure. Go knowing it, and the walking is still excellent.
THE BROCKEN AND THE STEAM RAILWAY. The Brocken, 1,141 metres, is the highest point in northern Germany, and the Harzer Schmalspurbahnen narrow gauge steam railway climbs to the summit, most famously from Wernigerode about half an hour away. You can also walk it. The summit has its own weather and almost always has more of it than the valley.
AND WALPURGISNACHT, THE NIGHT OF 30 APRIL, is the Harz tradition of witches on the Brocken, and across the region it is a large, costumed, well-attended party rather than a quiet folk observance. Worth timing for or avoiding, depending.
When to Go
May to September is the best walking and the mine is fully open, with long light evenings in the old town.
October into early November is the strongest visual season, with beech colour on the lower slopes, and it is also when the dead spruce is most visible, because there is no haze to soften it.
December is the Christmas market on the Marktplatz, which is one of the better small ones in Germany, with a forest of lit trees set up in the square itself.
January to March is cold, dark and often snowy at altitude, with the Brocken frequently in freezing fog. The old town works fine in winter. The hills need real gear or a shortened plan.
Getting There
Direct trains from Hanover take about an hour and a quarter, and Hanover connects to everywhere on the high speed network. Berlin is around three hours with a change, Hamburg about two and a half, Frankfurt around four.
Goslar station is a ten minute walk from the Marktplatz, flat and signposted, so a car is unnecessary for the town itself.
For the Harz, a car genuinely helps: the trailheads and the smaller villages are served by buses that run a few times a day and stop early. The Rammelsberg is a short bus ride or a half hour uphill walk from the centre.
The Goslar Packing List
A cold mine at 12 degrees year round, a continental winter, upland weather above the town and cobbles throughout.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the right thing for this specific trip: you will go from a warm street into a twelve degree mine and back out, or from a valley at 15 degrees up to a summit at 5 with wind on it, and wool handles that without the clamminess a synthetic gives you. From November to March add a heavyweight merino base layer.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece is the layer you will want underground in any season as well as outdoors in three of them, and a Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, because the Harz is one of the wetter parts of Germany and the Brocken is one of the wettest and windiest places in the country.
Walking shoes with grip for the mine floor, which is wet and uneven, for the cobbles, and for the forest tracks.
A rechargeable headlamp is unusually worth packing here. The mine tours light what you need, but the Harz trails in autumn and winter go dark by mid afternoon and the old town lanes are dimly lit.
A merino beanie from October onward, for the summit, the market and the valley evenings.
Not linked and worth packing: CASH IN EUROS, for the market, the smaller museums and plenty of restaurants; CLOTHES YOU DO NOT MIND MARKING for the mine, because ore dust and water are part of it; A SMALL DAYPACK; AND A FOLDING UMBRELLA for the town, which is no use at all on the Brocken.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Goslar
Emergency numbers: 112 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile, with operators who will find an English speaker. It is the single number across the whole European Union.
GERMANY'S NATIONAL TERRORISM WORDING NAMES MARKETS, AND THE REST OF THIS SECTION IS TERRAIN. The FCDO states that terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Germany and lists markets, places of worship, shopping centres, crowded public spaces and sporting and cultural events among potential targets. That is a national assessment and tells you nothing about the Harz; it is worth holding in mind at the Christmas market and nowhere else. THE REAL HAZARDS HERE ARE THE MINE AND THE MOUNTAIN. Underground you are on wet uneven rock in a working industrial monument: wear the helmet, stay with the guide, and say in advance if you are claustrophobic or have mobility difficulties, because some sections are low and narrow. THE BROCKEN MAKES ITS OWN WEATHER, with wind, freezing fog and sudden visibility loss on a summit that is only 1,141 metres and is frequently worse than that number suggests, so check the forecast, take a layer more than you think, and do not count on the summit railway running. AND THE DEAD SPRUCE IS A SAFETY MATTER AS WELL AS A VISUAL ONE: standing deadwood falls, especially in wind, forestry operations close tracks at short notice, and the signed closures are real rather than advisory. THE GROUND IN TOWN is original cobble, domed and slippery in rain and ice. CRIME IS AT UK LEVELS, with the FCDO naming mugging, bag-snatching and pickpocketing, which here means ordinary care in a market crowd; it also warns about counterfeit currency and advises using banks, ATMs or official exchange offices and checking your change, which matters in a town where you will pay cash often.
US State Department travel advisory: the Germany advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/germany, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: Asklepios Harzkliniken Goslar is the town's hospital with a full emergency department, a few minutes from the centre, and it is the receiving hospital for the Harz. Dial 112 for ambulance and fire and 110 for police, both free from any phone, and 112 works from a mobile with no SIM. Mountain and forest rescue is also 112. Pharmacies, Apotheken, post the night and Sunday duty rota on the door under the heading Notdienst. Germany is in the EU, so a UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as a resident. That is not the same as free: German healthcare involves patient contributions and the card does not cover repatriation or private treatment, so travel insurance sits on top of it. German hospitals are excellent and English is widely spoken in them, particularly in university cities. An Apotheke, marked with a red A, handles minor problems without an appointment and the duty rota for out-of-hours is posted in the window. Tap water is drinkable everywhere. Dial 112 for an ambulance and 116117 for the non-emergency medical service.
Official health authority: the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's public health body, covers the national health service information and the pharmacy duty rotas
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Berlin.
Official tourism authority: the German National Tourist Board, covers Lower Saxony and the Harz, and the town office publishes the Rammelsberg tour times and the Imperial Palace opening hours, both of which are shorter in winter
Forest closures and track conditions are decided by the Lower Saxony state forest service, Niedersachsische Landesforsten, which publishes the felling and safety closures across the Harz, and the national park above the town is administered by the Harz National Park, whose own site carries the current trail status. Check one of them before a long walk rather than after.
Takeaways
Book the mine tour before you travel. It is the reason to come and the places are limited.
The mine is 12 degrees in August. Bring a layer you can carry.
The Harz forest is largely dead spruce. Go knowing it, not expecting the brochure.
Hanover is an hour and a quarter by direct train. The town needs no car; the hills do.
Solo women safety assessment: Goslar is an easy, prosperous and quiet place to travel alone. It is a small Lower Saxon town whose visitor economy is museums, walkers and families, the old town is a compact ten minutes end to end, and there is no district to avoid or hour to think twice about. Eating alone is unremarkable and the station is a short flat walk from the centre. THE RISKS HERE ARE ENVIRONMENTAL AND INDUSTRIAL RATHER THAN SOCIAL. Underground, the Rammelsberg is a preserved industrial site with wet uneven rock and low narrow passages, so stay with the guide and declare claustrophobia or mobility problems when you book rather than at the entrance. On the hills, the Brocken is only 1,141 metres and behaves like something higher, with wind, freezing fog and fast visibility loss, and the summit railway does not always run. The bark beetle dieback has left large areas of standing deadwood that falls in wind and brings frequent forestry closures, and those closures are instructions rather than suggestions. In town the cobbles are the commonest cause of injury, slick in rain and genuinely treacherous in ice. Germany's crime levels are comparable to the UK's and the FCDO names mugging, bag-snatching and pickpocketing, with a counterfeit currency warning worth heeding where cash is this common. 112 REACHES AMBULANCE, FIRE AND MOUNTAIN RESCUE AND 110 REACHES POLICE, free from any phone, and the Asklepios hospital in town has a full emergency department.
Reading On
Goslar belongs with the other German towns the war left standing and the ones it did not. The Kassel packing list covers the Hessian city an hour and a half south west, the documenta city and the Grimm one, and the Erfurt packing list covers Thuringia's intact medieval capital with its inhabited bridge. North, the Bremen packing list covers the Hanseatic city with its UNESCO town hall and the Lubeck packing list the brick Gothic one on the Baltic. East, the Leipzig packing list covers Saxony's music city, the Potsdam packing list the Prussian palace town, and the Berlin packing list the capital three hours away. For the country, the Germany travel guide for women carries the transport, the regions and the seasons in full. For why wool suits a twelve degree mine and a warm street in the same hour, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection. Published alongside this one: the Quedlinburg packing list covers the other Harz UNESCO town, at the eastern end of the same range and under the same dying spruce, and the Hildesheim packing list covers the Lower Saxon city half an hour from Hanover whose Ottonian bronze doors are the finest in Europe. Up the same range, the Wernigerode packing list covers the Harz town that is the narrow gauge railway's home station and the main departure point for the Brocken, with a famous timber-framed town hall and a castle above it.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
