We were up for a reasonably satisfactory breakfast in th hostel this morning before the long bagage drag back to the hauptbanhof. We had planned to stay in town longer, but the lack of a reasonable place to leave our luggage combined with the fact that we'd basically seen everything worth seeing in town meant we were pretty motivated to get up and out.
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| Hostel breakfsat |
When we got to the station, the steam-train up to Bocken in the harz mountains was warming up, which was a nice sight to see.
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| An honest to goodness steam-train. |
In no time, we'd jumped on our regional train and in just half an hour we were in Wernigerode. We immediately caught sight of Wenigerode castle hovering over the town like a real-life Hogwarts.
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| Wernigerode castle hovering over the town |
Walking into town, we were immediately struck by how much nicer Wernigerode was than Quedlinburg. The houses were in a better state of repair, and the whole place just looked cleaner and fresher. The christmas market stalls were all still up, which gave us hope that the market might be still on.
Soon we reached our hotel - Hotel Weisser Hirsch right on the marktplatz opposite the rathaus.
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| Hotel Weisser Hirsch |
And what a rathaus! One of the most amazing building we'd seen so far, and half-timbered to boot. I mean the gothic structures in Munich and Nuremberg were impressive, but this was almost more so. Sooo beautiful.
Soon we had our bags stashed at the hotel and we ventured out into the town for a wander.
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| The Wernigerod rathaus - beautiful. |
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| Christmas market stalls are still up. Are we in luck? No. |
It was quickly apparent, from the numerous signs posted about town, that the christmas market had indeed been cancelled in sympathy for Magdeburg. Very dissapointing to say the least. Almost at once we started to see the stalls being disassembled and taken away. In our despair we decided to adjourn for lunch and thought the Ratskeller a sound option. And it was! with the ratskeller giving us yet more Haxe and bier #28 for this trip - Fransikaner Hefeweizen. Now I won't pretend that I've never had Fransikaner before, but it was a legitimately new bier for this trip, and being on tap, it was oh so good!
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| The Wernigerode Ratskeller |
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| Bier #28 - Fransikaner Hefeweizen |
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| Saved by an amazing meal at the Ratskeller again! |
After a great lunch, we decided to explore more of old town. The first port of call was the so-called Kleinstes Haus - a tiny house that a family of nine lived in 300 years ago, now turned into a museum of smallness and filled with the kind of bric-a-brac that normally drives me insane (old dollls and so on).
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| The Wernigerode Kleinstes Haus |
After the Kleinstes Haus, we wandered around town a little more. Being a sunday, nothing was really open but we did get to see a bunch more beautiful half-timbered houses. After Eb went back to the hotel to call Colista, we ventured out for an afternoon coffee in the local Italian coffee shop and then rested a little before dinner.
Dinner was a rather lacklustre affair at the local Brauhaus Wernigeride. The beer was ok (not worth a mention here) and the service was pretty bad. It's something we've been noticing amongst the smaller vendors both here and in Quedlinburg - a surliness towards us as customers. It feels like it might be due to fewer tourists in these smaller towns that were once DDR? Not sure, but at least the ratskeller makes us feel welcome :).
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