Team Snow: Germany Epic 6: Quedlinburg

Wow. It has taken me far too long to continue with this. Suffice to say we were in Quedlinburg just over 14 months ago. Everything I'm about to say is still relevant though, so don't go anywhere.

Quedlinburg is awesome. Fully amazingly awesome. It is definitely in the top five towns I've been to anywhere ever. I'm tempted to think it's very, very close to being number 1. When an English town has a timbered building, people will think it's charming and the twon will literally build a tourism strategy around it. Quedlinburg is all timbered buildings. All of it. It's spectacular. Oh, and it has an incredible Rathaus. And a castle. And a Käsekuchenbäckerei.... What do you mean, what's a Käsekuchenbäckerei? It's exactly what it says it is: a cheesecake bakery. Although the direct translation doesn't quite express the full magnitude of what they do there. Baked cheesecakes served in wedges which could end a non-lactose intolerant elephant. I know what you're thinking, "pics or it didn't happen." Well.

An oven full of cheesecakes with cheesecakes on top.

I mean. That's a pretty German picture. The bakery has been around forever and was within a short distance of the castle. It was great. Also, apporximately two minutes away was a genuine brauerei which served its own fully-delicious German beers. I think we tried four different types and were none the worse off for doing so.

We actually stayed in Quedlinburg a couple of nights, which was an excellent choice. This gave us sufficient time to take a ride out to Thale (because we weren't motorcycling enough)

Don't look down. Why not? You might be afraid of
heights. Well I'm not. OK, good, do what you want
then. I will. Good.

and enjoy a chairlift/gondola ride up to the top of the Tierpark Hexentanzplatz, which is a park on a big hill/mountain with spectacular views over the generally flat surrounding countryside. Hexen means (or at least is aligned to) witches. There was therefore a lot of witch-related stuff going on at the top of the hill including, but not limited to, an upside-down house, brass naked witch sculptures and various stalls selling black-magic-type souvenirs. It was clearly a place people went, which seemed a bit odd. We had a bit of a wander around, decided that too much walking in leathers was a terrible idea and took the gondola back down. It was fun/weird.

Really quite weird

There were probably any number of interesting things that happened in Quedlinburg. It was the sort of place that people go to chill out, wander about, eat a sausage in the square and go for a nice meal/beer in the evening. I really can't recommend it enough.

Because we were staying in a nice little apartment (in a timbered building obvs), we popped out of town to get cheap dinner provisions one evening to the local Lidl (or whatever it was, that or Edeka or Pennymarkt, one of the good/cheap ones). I think it was here that we first realised how beer with caffeine/coke/coffee is a thing in Germany. Despite the fact they have such strict laws on what can or can't be called beer, they then seem to like adding it to everything! Often called Diesel or something similar, we bought a couple. It's interesting. Like drinking beer and coffee at the same time. Very like that.

Anyway. Keeping it brief. Here're some more pictures of Quedlinburg.