Rammelsberger Bergbaumuseum

Leaving the town center, retrace your steps towards Clausthal-Zellerfeld for a very short distance and turn left for the brief drive to the *Rammelsberger Bergbaumuseum. The Rammelsberg Mine on the edge of Goslar closed in 1988, the only mine in the world to have been in continuous operation for over 1,000 years (968 to 1989). Everything is the way it was on the mine’s last day of operation. Don your hard hat and miner’s garb and follow your tour guide (tours are given in German but several of the guides speak English and give bilingual tours) past the 10th-century waste heaps, down long, low (well-lit) tunnels to the 12th-century Rathstiefster gallery, visiting ingenious wooden water wheels used for removing water from deep underground. You emerge in a more modern tunnel to see the little yellow train that carried the miners deep underground. The tour concludes with a film (in German) showing activities at the mine. Plans are afoot to offer a tour where you not only don mining garb, but take your hammer and lamp underground to the face to mine your own rock sample. (9:30 am–4:30 pm, daily.)