Harz Mountains and the Brocken

Northern Germany'S Highest Upland, Topping Out On The Brocken At 1,141 M, With A Narrow Gauge Steam Network, Harz National Park, And A Summit That Sat Inside The Inner German Border Zone Until 1989 · Wernigerode, Saxony-Anhalt

The Harz is a low, wooded upland straddling Saxony-Anhalt, Lower Saxony and Thuringia, and the highest ground in Germany north of the Alpine foothills: the Brocken tops out at 1,141 m. Most visitors come for the narrow-gauge steam railway that climbs to the summit from Wernigerode and Drei Annen Hohne, and the honest summary is that the journey is the attraction - the top is a bare, windswept plateau that spends a large part of the year in cloud. Around it sit Harz National Park, the long Hexenstieg trail, the Rappbode reservoir and its suspension bridge, the Bode Gorge at Thale, the show caves at Ruebeland, and two good bases in timber-framed Wernigerode and Goslar, inscribed by UNESCO with the Rammelsberg mine. Goethe set the Walpurgisnacht witches' sabbath on the Brocken and 30 April is still marked across the range. Two things to know before you book: the summit sat inside the inner-German border zone with a Soviet listening station until 1989, and bark beetle has killed large stands of spruce, so a lot of the forest now looks dead rather than green.

The Harz uplands around the Brocken, reached by the narrow-gauge steam railway from Wernigerode and Drei Annen Hohne, Wernigerode, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

The hills, trails and the Brocken summit plateau are open all year, free, and never shut. The narrow-gauge steam railway runs daily year-round, with several Brocken departures a day from Wernigerode and Drei Annen Hohne; services are thinned or cancelled in heavy snow and storm, so confirm on the day. The Brockenhaus museum on the summit normally opens daily with shorter winter hours; the Rammelsberg mine, the Ruebeland caves and the Thale cable car open daily in season and on reduced days or with closed weeks in winter - confirm all of them. The Titan RT suspension bridge runs daily in daylight, weather permitting. Buses across the range follow school timetables and are sparse on Sundays.

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