Wernigerode is a town of about 32,000 people on the northern edge of the Harz mountains, and it calls itself the colourful town on the Harz, which for once is accurate rather than municipal. The first image is its town hall: a late fifteenth century timber-framed building with twin spires and carved figures along the front, and one of the most photographed civic buildings in Germany. The second is the castle above the town. Between them they are most of why people come.
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What Is Here
THIS IS THE STEAM RAILWAY'S HOME STATION, AND THAT IS THE REASON TO BE HERE RATHER THAN SOMEWHERE ELSE IN THE HARZ. The HARZER SCHMALSPURBAHNEN, the narrow-gauge network, runs about 140 kilometres of metre-gauge line through these mountains on DAILY SCHEDULED STEAM SERVICES, not excursions, and Wernigerode is its principal hub and workshop town. The BROCKEN LINE leaves from here and climbs to the 1,141 metre summit, which is the single best thing you can do in the Harz. NOTE THAT THE TRAIN IS ABSENT FROM THIS POST'S PHOTOGRAPHS entirely, which is worth saying rather than implying: our images are the town. Book the Brocken service ahead in summer and check it the day before, because weather cancels it.
THE TOWN HALL IS THE SET PIECE AND THE MARKETPLACE AROUND IT IS SMALL. The building began as a theatre and playhouse in the thirteenth century and acquired its present face in the 1490s; the two slate spires and the row of carved brackets are what every photograph is of. The square in front is modest, which surprises people who have seen it cropped.
THE CASTLE IS NINETEENTH CENTURY AND IS HONEST ABOUT IT. Wernigerode Castle sits on the hill above the town and looks medieval from below. It is substantially a Gothic revival rebuilding of the 1860s and 70s over a genuine medieval and Renaissance core, done for Count Otto in the historicist taste of the period, and it is one of the better examples of that in northern Germany. The interiors are furnished and open, the terrace view over the Harz is the best in town, and you can walk up in twenty minutes or take the Bimmelbahn road train.
THE STREETS ARE THE THIRD THING AND THERE ARE A LOT OF THEM. The third image is representative: several hundred half-timbered buildings across the old town, many brightly painted, with the Krummelsches Haus and the Kleinste Haus, the smallest house, as the two everyone is sent to find. It is walkable in an hour and pleasant for three.
AND THE MOUNTAINS ABOVE THE TOWN ARE NOT IN THE CONDITION THE PHOTOGRAPHS SHOW. This is the same finding the Goslar and Quedlinburg posts carry and it belongs here too: since around 2018, drought followed by a bark beetle explosion has killed spruce across very large areas of the Harz, so what stands on many slopes is grey standing deadwood, clear-felled ground and young regrowth rather than closed dark forest. The Brocken train still climbs through it and the view is still extraordinary. Go knowing it rather than expecting the brochure.
When to Go
May to September is the best walking and the full railway timetable, with long evenings in the old town.
Late September and October bring beech colour on the lower slopes and the thinnest crowds of the open season.
December has a Christmas market around the town hall that uses the best backdrop in the Harz.
January to March is cold and often snowy, with the Brocken frequently in freezing fog and the summit train sometimes cancelled. The town works in winter and the walking shrinks a great deal. WALPURGISNACHT on 30 April is the Harz witches' tradition and is a large, costumed, well-attended night here.
Getting There
Regional trains run from Hanover in about two hours with a change, and from Berlin around three and a half. Magdeburg is about an hour and a quarter and Goslar half an hour.
The main station is where the narrow-gauge and the standard-gauge lines meet, a ten minute walk from the marketplace, which is the convenience that makes this town the natural Harz base.
A car is useful for the wider Harz and unnecessary in the town, where the old centre is partly pedestrianised and the lanes are narrow cobble.
The Wernigerode Packing List
Cobbled streets on a slope, a continental winter, upland weather twenty minutes away and a cold summit at the end of a train ride.
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 foundation here, and the Brocken train is the reason: you board in a warm valley town and arrive on an exposed 1,141 metre summit where the wind is doing something entirely different, often fifteen degrees colder with cloud on it. Wool covers that range in one layer and keeps working if the summit is wet. From November to March add a heavyweight merino base layer.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece in every season including July, and a Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, because the Harz is one of the wetter parts of Germany and the Brocken is among the wettest and windiest places in the country.
Walking shoes with grip for the old town cobbles and the castle hill, and for forest tracks that are often wet.
Microspikes are worth carrying from December to March, because the castle path and the sloping cobbled lanes ice over and a fall on a gradient is a serious one rather than an embarrassing one.
A merino beanie, which on the Brocken is useful in any month of the year.
Not linked and worth packing: SOFT LUGGAGE RATHER THAN WHEELS, because the lanes are cobbled; CASH IN EUROS for the market, the railway kiosks and the smaller museums; AND A WARM LAYER MORE THAN THE VALLEY FORECAST SUGGESTS if you are going up the mountain.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Wernigerode
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.
THE MOUNTAIN AND THE DEAD FOREST ARE THE TWO REAL HAZARDS HERE. The BROCKEN is only 1,141 metres and behaves like something far higher: it is among the windiest and wettest places in Germany, it carries freezing fog for much of the year, visibility can close in within minutes, and the summit is twelve to fifteen degrees colder than the valley you left. Take a layer more than you think, and do not count on the train running, because weather cancels the summit service. AND THE BARK BEETLE DIEBACK IS A SAFETY MATTER AS WELL AS A VISUAL ONE: standing deadwood falls, particularly in wind, so a windy day is a bad day to be under dead spruce, and forestry operations close tracks at short notice with signage that is an instruction rather than a suggestion. The Harz National Park publishes the current trail closures and the state of the dieback, and the Harzer Schmalspurbahnen publishes the railway's own operating status, which is the only reliable source for whether the Brocken train is running. Check both the evening before. IN THE TOWN the ground is the everyday risk: original cobble on a slope, polished and domed, slick in rain and genuinely difficult in ice, with the castle path steep. GERMANY'S NATIONAL TERRORISM WORDING names markets, places of worship, shopping centres, crowded public spaces and sporting and cultural events, with the FCDO stating that terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Germany; in a town of 32,000 the only crowds that touches are the Christmas market and Walpurgisnacht. CRIME IS AT UK LEVELS, with the FCDO naming mugging, bag-snatching and pickpocketing, and a counterfeit currency warning that matters here because so much is cash. WINTER IS COLD AND CONTINENTAL, regularly below freezing with lying snow.
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: Harzklinikum Dorothea Christiane Erxleben has a site in Wernigerode with an emergency department, part of the same group as the Quedlinburg hospital and named for the first woman to earn a medical doctorate in Germany. Magdeburg and Halle are about an hour and a quarter away for anything major. Dial 112 for ambulance, fire and mountain rescue and 110 for police, both free from any phone, and 112 works from a mobile with no SIM. Note that mobile coverage thins on the Brocken plateau and in the forest valleys. Pharmacies 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 Saxony-Anhalt and the Harz, and the town office publishes the castle opening hours, the Walpurgisnacht arrangements and the Christmas market dates
Takeaways
This is the steam railway's home town. The Brocken line leaves from here.
Check the railway's own status page. Weather cancels the summit service.
The Harz spruce is largely dead. Deadwood falls in wind, and tracks close.
Microspikes from December to March. Cobbles on a slope, iced.
Solo women safety assessment: Wernigerode is an easy and gentle place to travel alone. It is a small, prosperous Saxony-Anhalt town whose visitors are walkers, railway enthusiasts and families, the old town is twenty minutes end to end, there is no district to avoid and no hour that changes anything, and eating alone in a timber-framed restaurant is entirely ordinary. THE RISKS ARE ENVIRONMENTAL AND THEY ARE WORTH TAKING SERIOUSLY DESPITE THE MODEST ALTITUDE. The Brocken is only 1,141 metres and is among the windiest and wettest places in Germany, with freezing fog much of the year and a summit twelve to fifteen degrees colder than the town, so carry more than the valley forecast suggests and do not rely on the summit train running. The bark beetle dieback has left large areas of standing deadwood that falls in wind, and the forestry closures posted on those tracks are instructions. Mobile coverage thins on the plateau and in the forest valleys, so tell somebody your plan before a long walk. In town the cobbles on a slope are the commonest cause of injury, slick in rain and treacherous in ice, which is why traction devices are in the winter list. Germany's crime levels are comparable to the UK's and the FCDO names mugging, bag-snatching and pickpocketing plus a counterfeit currency warning worth heeding in a cash town. The national terrorism assessment names markets, which here means the Christmas market and Walpurgisnacht. 112 REACHES AMBULANCE, FIRE AND MOUNTAIN RESCUE AND 110 REACHES POLICE, and the town hospital has an emergency department.
Reading On
Wernigerode is the third Harz town in this library and the one the other two point at. The Goslar packing list covers the imperial mining town half an hour west, with a UNESCO mine you go inside, and the Quedlinburg packing list covers the half-timbered UNESCO town to the east whose abbey holds the first German king; both reference the steam railway that runs from here, and the three together are the Harz. Beyond the mountains, the Erfurt packing list covers Thuringia's intact medieval capital, the Leipzig packing list the Saxon music city, and the Kassel packing list the documenta city west. Further afield the Potsdam packing list and the Berlin packing list cover the palace town and the capital. For the country, the Germany travel guide for women carries the transport, the regions and the seasons in full. For why one wool layer covers a warm valley and a cold summit 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: nothing, because this town completes a trio already live. The Goslar packing list covers the imperial mining town half an hour west and the Quedlinburg packing list the half-timbered UNESCO town east, and both of them point at the narrow gauge railway that runs from here.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
