Well I visited the old St. Nicholas Church of Quedlinburg which was under heavy remodelling and reconstruction. Nothing fancy, just another big ol’ church. Then I tried to go to the Fachwerk Museum, but it was closed on Thursdays… just conveniently the one day I wanted to go. Fachwerk is the German term for ‘half-timbered’ housing. The old medieval style with the wood beams showing through. Detailing the history of it and how it’s made… oh well. So I went to the old Train and Toy Museum which is about a 10 second walk away, across the intersection. It’s got tons of old model train bits from the early 1900’s. Then on the floor above is the toy museum, which has tons and tons of old toys for children, dolls, figures, an old Foosball table, there the figures are not on metal balls, they stand on the table and rotate in place with one lever, and another lever causes them to kick out and knock the ball.

Well that’s that, I then hopped on the train to my next city, at the base of the famous Harz Mountain Range. (pronounced: Hahrts) The town of Wernigerode! (pronounced vair-nih-ger-roduh). It’s quite close to Quedlinburg, and is very similar, it too is another historic medieval town, and this one has a much bigger, more famous castle on a hill that overlooks the town. Nobody knows how old the city is or when it was settled as no records exist of its founding.  “The town was first mentioned in the records in 1121 in connexion with Count Adalbert of Haimar who had moved here from the region near Hildesheim and henceforth was titled the Count of Wernigerode.” I spent a short bit of time walking around the town, before hopping on a cool street train (my hotel gave a big fat discount booklet, and it had a discount for this train) that goes up the long road to the castle. It was cool! The castle is not nearly as old as it looks, but it still looks pretty damn cool! That castle currently there was remodeled and finished in the late 1800’s, though the old foundations are much older. It was a place for visitors of the kings and emperors of Germany to stay and visit, such as Otto von Bismarck, (lots of portraits of him in there) Kaiser Wilhelm I, and others. It had all the old furnishings, suits of armor, guns, canons, elegant portraiture, it was really neat! No photos were allowed inside the chambers however. I walked around visiting some shops up at the castle and then heading back down to walk around some more of the town. Be sure to check out the video I took from the castle courtyard.

It’s time once again for that German city with a goofy name! Today’s wacky city name is: Süderbrarup.

Video below! The view from the castle court yard.