German North and Center
On our big voyage to Germany, we skirted the northern parts of the country, including Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck and other Hanseatic League towns. Germany is too big a country to visit everything it has to offer in a little over two weeks, so we sacrificed the North.
Wernigerode
Our itinerary, however, demanded a drive from the Rhine Valley to Berlin, and we were interested to split the 500-km trek into two parts. Our good friend who lived in Germany at the time suggested Wernigerode, in the Harz Mountains region, as a nice place to make an intraday stop.
The town center is nothing short of picture-perfect, with superbly preserved half-timbered houses alongside its Old Town streets. The variety of ornaments adorning the houses is unbelievable. A splendid rathaus presides over the main town square, Marktplatz, but there are many visual delights in various corners of the largely pedestrian city center.
A fairy-tale Schloss Wernigerode ♥♥ sits high above town, reachable by a mini-train. It houses the art collection of local erstwhile rulers and offers great views of the surrounding area from its ramparts.