Routes · Europe

Rome to the Harz towns: Quedlinburg and Goslar

Rome → Quedlinburg → Goslar

Timber-framed streets & an old silver mine Best season (general guide): May–Oct

The Harz, a low range of forested mountains in central Germany, is ringed by some of the country's most complete timber-framed towns. This route spends three nights in Quedlinburg and three in Goslar. From Rome you'll fly to Hanover, then take the train. Base yourself first in Quedlinburg, just north of the Harz.

How to pace it: Spend days one to three in Quedlinburg: day one, train from Hanover; day two, castle hill and the collegiate church; day three, old town lanes. Then spend days four to six in Goslar: day four, train to Goslar, then the market square; day five, Rammelsberg mine; day six, Imperial Palace.

On the castle hill, visit Quedlinburg Abbey, once a community of noblewomen, whose church holds a treasury of medieval objects. Goslar, on the north-western slopes of the Harz, has an old town with over 1,500 timber houses.

Goslar's old town, together with the Rammelsberg mines, is a UNESCO site for a thousand years of ore mining. Visit the Imperial Palace of Goslar, one of the main seats of the Holy Roman Emperors in the eleventh century. Go from late spring to autumn, when the forests are at their best for walking.

Quedlinburg is in the district of Harz in the west of Saxony-Anhalt. Henry the Fowler, the first king of the Ottonian dynasty, is buried in the collegiate church of St Servatius. Goslar is the administrative centre of its district in Lower Saxony.

Each year, the town awards the Kaiserring, an art prize given to modern artists. Rammelsberg's mines produced silver, copper and lead for about a thousand years.

Safety: Canada's advice for Germany is to exercise a high degree of caution (updated 11 Aug 2026), and the US rates Germany Level 2 (13 May 2025).

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