Has any one heard of Quedlinburg?

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Nor had I until try to find an interesting place to stay between Antwerp and Berlin. This was where I was pointed by respondents on the excellent thorn tree forum run by LP amongst a host of other towns. We then selected it based on what looked like an interesting room on Airbnb............and the web did not lie.

We were tired from the Antwerp bus ride so the series of local trains we trundled along in passed in a bit of a blur as we nodded in and out of sleep. Waking just before the Quedlinburg stop I first observed tell tale signs of post industrial decay - we must be in the old 'East'. What were we coming to? Would it be a few points of view and then Soviet style apartments?

I need not have worried. Yes you can see the remains of the grey GDR days peeping through the reunification watercolours and this can not impact the depth of history on show. An art installation in a 16 century cellar described it best. The key points it highlighted were that from being the centre of the German Ottoian Kingdom in 1000AD; Bomber Harris some how missed it off his target list (unlike the artist's Kassel which was flattened); the GDR then some how forgot to replace it will apartment bricks in the 60's until it got UNESCO heritage status in 1994. We got this information from a small exhibition celebrating 20 years since the UNESCO status was awarded.

We were shown around the exhibit by Lilli Grunewald who has a silk painting workshop next door. She showed us how she did her work including letting Jane fill in one square. She had created some silks coloured rust with old iron scrap which were exquisite. Do have a look at her stuff on www.til-tal.de. Above all she was a lovely lady and we were pleased to meet her (and that she spoke such good English).

It turned out that one of the exhibits was by the lady whose house we are staying in. Narine is Armenian and Thomas is German. She is very busy at the moment preparing for an exhibition in the local Blasiikirche as well as hosting us. You can see her work on www.narinezolyan.de. Thomas is a craftsman and they have settled in Quedlinburg after stints in Vienna and Armenia. Quedlinburg provides the right mix of economic living and artistic support for their different cultures. Interestingly the two of them find that the best way to communicate with each other is in English! They have spent the last two years restoring their house from a shell into the "Kunst Asyl". They rent rooms to artists and through Airbnb. We have a bedsit. It is very adequate with a shower/bathroom ensuite and kitchenette area all done in wood in a simple craftsman style by Thomas. We can highly recommend it.

What makes Quedlinburg so special is its history as the central city in the Ottoian kingdom and location of a powerful canonary for noble ladies for 800 years and then the more than 1600 timber-framed buildings through the town. These date from 1215 to the early 1800's and the sheer number is incredible. We spent a day and half doing the town walk and it was a joy to turn every corner.

The town is just North of the Harz mountains and yesterday we took the well established narrow gauge steam railway into these wooded hills. We dismounted at Alexisbad which was not much more then a few hotels and found a trail to explore. There were not many folk around to start with and we soon were very much on our own. It was not for the faint hearted with the increasingly greying skies and the long damp grass testing our boots and trousers. We found hunting hides and I held on and so did not fall down through a rotten plank.

We re-emerged in Alexisbad with the heavens about to open and found a bus shelter for our picnic. I am not sure what the local schoolboys thought when they had to share the stop with two crazy English. We stopped off at Gernrode on the way back to see an old medieval church.

Tomorrow we are off to Berlin.

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Photos

A beer in the Brau house
Memories of Zwickau