Quedlinburg

Cross the river (following signposts for Zentrum), then secure a parking place and walk to the Marktplatz, where you find the tourist office and the sturdy stone Rathaus (town hall). Within the old town there are 1,500 half-timbered houses, many of them crumbling and in need of restoration, looking much as they must have in the Middle Ages. The entire town center is an architectural gem. Map in hand, explore the little streets behind the Rathaus, venturing down narrow alleyways where you can touch the leaning houses on either side of the cobbled walkways to emerge on streets with elaborate, picture-perfect façades. On a low promontory just a short walk from the Marktplatz you find the Schloss Quedlinburg and the Stifskirche (collegiate church) of St. Servatius, which is considered the most beautiful Romanesque church in north and central Germany. It is a surprisingly spacious, simply adorned edifice built between 1070 and 1129. The treasury chamber contains valuable religious relics, and the room next to it contains fragments of a knotted wall hanging discovered in the 19th century. The adjacent Schlossmuseum houses 16th- and 17th-century Flemish and Italian paintings, and gives you an impression of life at the time of the founding of the Damenstift, a religious institution run for ladies by nuns. The terrace gives you a spectacular view of the town’s rooftops. (9 am–5 pm, closed Mondays.) The Klopstockhaus, a magnificent patrician home at the foot of the castle, has been used as a museum for over 90 years. (9 am–5 pm, closed Mondays and Tuesdays.) The Ständerbau (half-timbered house, Wordgasse 3), built in the 13th century, is the oldest half-timbered building in the town and was a home until 1965. The tiny rooms with all their nooks and crannies house an exhibition on the half-timbered architecture of Quedlinburg. (10 am–5 pm, May to September, closed Thursdays.)