Beautiful half-timbered houses, a romantic hilltop castle and exploring the fabled Brocken mountain are just a few of the best things to do in Wernigerode, one of the gateways to the Harz Mountains of Central Germany.
Wernigerode is one of three large towns on the north side of the Harz range, and perhaps the best base for exploring the region. It’s the closest town to the Brocken, the highest mountain in the Harz, and you can enjoy a steam train ride all the way to the summit from the town.
The town has some of the most beautiful half-timbered buildings in Germany, the bright colours of many giving the place an extra spark and lift. It’s also rich in traditional German myths and fairytales, the surrounding area said to be home to witches who only emerge at night.
In this article, I’ll show you the best things to see in Wernigerode, and also advise you on places to stay and eat in the town. I also cover the practicalities of getting to Wernigerode from some of the major cities of Germany, and suggest other places to visit in the surrounding Harz Mountains region.
Wernigerode Town Hall (Rathaus)
Wernigerode’s Rathaus (Town Hall) is one of the most striking buildings in Germany. I think it’s one of the most fanciful German Gothic structures to have survived from the Middle Ages.
The façade of the 15th-century Town Hall is unforgettable. It’s half-timbered, parts of the wall are orange, and two spires rise from above the two sets of bay windows on each side. The positioning of the windows makes it appear as if the building has eyes, and the effect of the spires above the windows led to my son and I comparing it to a stern-looking owl with horns. Whatever it looks like, it’s a magnificent sight.
Also make sure you take a closer look at the carved figures above the main doorway, facing the square. The tourist information building to the left of the Rathaus (as you face the front from the square) also has some great figures above its entrance.
You can also see a miniature version of the Rathaus and numerous other Harz Region landmarks at the Bürger und Miniaturen Park a mile or so north of the town centre. We visited Wernigerode just before it opened for the season, so were greatly disappointed not to see it for ourselves, but check out the website – it looks brilliant, for kids and adults alike.
Café Wien
Café Wien, close to the corner of Breite Strasse and the Marktplatz, is one of the older and most beautiful buildings in Wernigerode. It was built in 1583, and the Renaissance-era façade is exquisite, with distinctive painted fan-style motifs typical of the period.
The building was eventually used as a café in 1897, wand this has continued ever since, including the GDR (Communist East Germany) era. It’s one of the better cafes in Wernigerode, serving traditional breakfasts, coffee and cake.
Café Wien is open daily from 8i.00 am to 6.00 pm, except Sundays when it opens at 10.00 am.
St John’s Church
The Johanniskirche, just off Breite Strasse, is the oldest surviving church in Wernigerode. Parts of it are from the Romanesque period (most likely the 13th century), including the sturdy tower and the small south transept.
The nave and choir were rebuilt in the Gothic style, possibly towards the end of the 15th century, and the character of the church changed further during an extensive 19th-century restoration. Several modern stained-glass windows have also been installed over the last decade.
My attention was drawn to the church as it’s included in the Romanesque Road (Strasse der Romanik) route around the state of Saxony-Anhalt. It’s one of the lower profile inclusions of the 88 sites included, which is reflected in its limited opening hours (Easter to September, Tuesdays to Saturdays 10.00 am to 12.00 pm and 3.00 pm to 5.00 pm, Sundays and public holidays 11.00am to 12.30 pm).
If you’re visiting Wernigerode in autumn and winter, the local tourist office will be able to help you arrange access.
Breite Strasse and Altstadt
The sheer exuberance of Wernigerode’s architecture led me to include the town on my German Half-Timbered Towns Itinerary. It’s one of the best places in the country to see this type of architecture, and what sets it apart for me is some of the extraordinary detail on the house fronts, and the bright, vivid colours of some of the facades in the town.
The town’s main street, Breite Strasse (which means ‘Broad Street’) is the best place to start. You’ll almost certainly walk along part of the street at some point, and it’s where you’ll find some of the best half-timbered houses in Wernigerode, not to mention several cafés and some of the best shops in the town.
One of my favourite buildings in the town is the house pictured above, with the colourful fan motifs on each floor. Another of the prettiest streets in Wernigerode is Kochstrasse, which runs south from the Marktplatz to the Smallest House Museum (see below).
Crooked House – Museum Schiefes Haus
Visiting this quirky museum is easily one of our favourite things to do in Wernigerode. The half-timbered building, located just behind Wernigerode’s Town Hall, dates from 1680, when it was built to be a fulling mill. It fulfilled this function until well into the 19th century.
This small Museum (entry just €2.00) is worth visiting just to walk around the house. The building leans an amazing seven degrees from the perpendicular, and it looks crooked enough from outside. But a walk around the interior takes you into another dimension.
The only comparison I can think of is the sloping villains’ hideouts in the classic 1960s Batman TV series. Looking around immediately brought to mind Cesar Romero’s cackling Joker or Frank Gorshin’s manic Riddler, and my son and I talked about what a great setting this would make for one of those classic Batman fights.
The house also makes a great exhibition space. When we visited three exhibitions were running – one on dolls from 1880 to 1960 which Faye loved, and another on Harz photographer Karl Blossfeldt which captivated me. Blossfeldt was known for his close-up studies of plants, which were important not just scientifically but artistically. He adapted his lenses to shoot in far greater detail than his contemporaries, becoming one of the pioneers of macro photography in the process.
The temporary exhibition which was running upstairs when we visited covered the bombing of Wernigerode in World War Two. It was fascinating to learn more about this, as it’s something only local history books and exhibitions would have this kind of information.
Wernigerode Castle
As you walk along Breite Strasse towards the Old Town of Wernigerode, you catch a glimpse of the fairytale Schloss Wernigerode. Like the Reichsburg Castle above Cochem on the Mosel River, it’s the icing on the cake, a mass of towers and pinnacles rising out of the forest, looking down over the town below.
The Castle was originally founded early in the 12th century, in a prime hilltop spot for a medieval fortress. It came into the possession of the Counts of Stolberg in 1429, and they rebuilt it twice before it was severely damaged during the Thirty Years War (1618 to 1648). Its days as a defensive castle were over, and it was rebuilt as a Baroque castle residence following the War. It was rebuilt again in the 19th century.
The 16th-century Renaissance tower is the oldest element of the Schloss, with most of the remainder dating from the 19th-century reconstruction. Like the more famous Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, it’s a bit of a mish-mash of old styles of architecture, especially Gothic. This type of building is often called ‘historicist’ or historical revival, which was especially popular across much of Europe in the 19th century.
Appropriately, the Castle is now home to a Museum covering art and history in 19th-century Germany and Europe. Inside the Castle, the Banqueting Hall and Castle Chapel alone are worth the hike or tourist train ride up the hill.
Harz Steam Railway and Brockenbahn
If you’re planning to explore the Harz Steam Railway, Wernigerode is the best base for doing so. This is because it’s the closest town to the Brockenbahn, the branch of the Harz Railway which runs to the summit of the highest mountain in the Harz, the Brocken.
The ride from Wernigerode to the Brocken summit takes around 1 hour 50 minutes, including a change of trains at Drei Annen Hohne. The second part of the journey takes you through steeper terrain, climbing through forests to the summit area which, during the Cold War, was of great strategic importance.
Wernigerode was a few miles inside the East German border (nearby Goslar was on the other side of the Iron Curtain in the former West Germany) so the area was subject to heightened security measures. And the 1141-metre summit of the Brocken was just the place for the East Germans to build a listening post to spy on their capitalist counterparts.
The fare for the Brocken is the same right across the Harz Railway network – in 2025 it varied between €57 and €65 for an adult return ticket.
The Witches of Wernigerode
As you’ll see while walking the streets of Wernigerode, the town has quite a thing about witches. We found several witch figures around the town, including the rather creepy one used to advertise the Schlossbahn, the train from the Altstadt (Old Town) up the hill to Wernigerode Castle.
The Brocken and surrounding area has a long association with witches. In a scene from Goethe’s Faust, Mephistopheles (the devil) takes Faust up the mountain on St Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht) to convene with witches there.
An unusual phenomenon occurring on the mountain – which can also occur anywhere else in the right conditions – has also been named after the Brocken. The Brocken spectre (pictured) is the projection of the outline of a human figure – oneself – by the sun onto a cloud formation. The figure seems to be greatly magnified, and surrounded by a rainbow-like halo.
The large size of the figure is an optical illusion, and lasts as long as the right conditions remain. I once saw a Brocken spectre for two or three minutes while hiking in the Brecon Beacons mountains in Wales – the only time the sun came out all day. It’s quite a spooky phenomenon, and even though there’s a simple explanation for it, it adds to the ghostly mysterious reputation of the Brocken and the Harz Mountains.
Wildpark Christianental
If you’re visiting Wernigerode with klds, it may be worth giving them a break from the half-timbered architecture for an hour or so, particularly if they’re animal lovers like my son.
The Wildpark Christianental is on the hill, which is planted with numerous giant sequoia trees, which are among the largest in the world. The paths through the woods take you to native European species including wild boar, lynxes, Sika deer, red foxes, and owls, with an additional aviary and a rodent exhibit.
The wildlife park is on the eastern edge of town, a short walk up the hill from the Aldi supermarket. Otherwise it’s less than a kilometre’s walk from the Castle.
Harzmuseum
The Harzmuseum, a few steps from the Town Hall, is a short but sweet introduction to the town’s history, and the flora and fauna of the Harz Mountains. The area is by far the highest in Northern Germany, so its wildlife and plants are quite different from the flat lowlands which predominate across the region.
I only had a quick 20-minute visit to this museum at the end of the day, and think an hour or so would have done it much more justice.
Smallest House In Wernigerode
The Kleinstes Haus is a tiny museum in the smallest house in the town. The house was built in the 18th century on a tiny vacant plot of land between two houses which was less than 3 metres wide.
According to the Wernigerode town website, it was once occupied by up to eleven people. All you can surmise from that is they all must have been pretty small, not to mention highly tolerant of others!
The ground floor consists of an entrance space and kitchen, with a small living space on the first (middle) floor and a bedroom in the attic. The Museum Kleinstes Haus is only open from May to October, and as we visited in March, we were sadly unable to visit.
I have read elsewhere that the Kleinstes Haus is the smallest house in Germany. I can assure you that it isn’t. This tiny 4 square metre house in Bremen is considerably smaller, but Wernigerode’s smallest house would be well worth a look around.
There is also an interesting bronze sculpture in the street outside the house called Die Rast (The Rest). It’s a figure of a man leaning forward, resting on his walking stick, by Joachim Jastram.
Wernigerode Aviation Museum Luftfahrtmuseum Wernigerode
The Aviation Museum was the one sight in Wernigerode that we didn’t get to see during our day trip there.
It’s a pity, as there are over 40 complete aircraft on display, from jet fighters like the one pictured above to helicopters, a collection of aircraft engines, and even exhibits like ejector seats.
Check out the Aviation Museum website here.
Where Is Wernigerode
Wernigerode is located near the western border of the Land (province or state) of Saxony-Anhalt (Sachsen-Anhalt in German) in the centre of northern Germany.
It’s also on the northern edge of the Harz Mountains, a few miles from its highest point, the Brocken mountain.
For those of a certain age (like myself) who grew up with a divided Germany, Wernigerode was in the former East Germany, the Communist-controlled German Democratic Republic. Here are some sample distances to Wernigerode from other places to visit in the region, and some major German cities:
Berlin to Wernigerode – 227 km (141 miles)
Hamburg to Wernigerode – 276 km (171 miles)
Frankfurt to Wernigerode – 302 km (188 miles)
Goslar to Wernigerode – 38 km (24 miles)
Quedlinburg to Wernigerode – 30 km (19 miles)
Magdeburg to Wernigerode – 82 km (51 miles)
Hannover to Wernigerode – 112 km (70 miles)
Leipzig to Wernigerode – 144km (89 miles)
How To Get To Wernigerode
Wernigerode is well-connected by both train and bus with major towns and cities across Germany.
However, its location over 3 hours by train from Berlin, with similar length journeys from Leipzig and Hamburg, means that day trips from these cities to Wernigerode aren’t the best option. I would be more inclined to look into something along the lines of the Harz Half-Timbered Itinerary, allocating a few days of your itinerary to exploring a few places in the area, including Goslar, Quedlinburg and the Brocken.
From Berlin, your best bet is to get a train to Magdeburg Hbf, and you can catch an onward train from there. A daily RE1 service runs at 0901 to Magdeburg, from where you can change to the RE21 service to Wernigerode. The whole journey takes 3 hours 20 minutes one way. If you’re travelling with a Deutschlandticket, it is valid for the entire trip.
From Leipzig, you can also do the journey in as little as 2 hours, with one change of train at Halle (Saale) Hbf. The R4 runs direct from Halle to Wernigerode.
From Goslar, it’s normally a straightforward 30-minute journey to Wernigerode.
And from Quedlinburg, it’s either an hour by train with a change at Halberstadt, or the 230 bus runs from the bus station (next door to the train station) to Wernigerode, taking 50 minutes.
Wernigerode Tours
As mentioned earlier in the article, Wernigerode is still fairly off the beaten track for English-speaking visitors.
One of the best English-language tours is this Harz Mountains day tour which includes Wernigerode, nearby Ilsenburg and the World Heritage-listed Walkenried Monastery.
This Wernigerode walking tour is in German only, so if you speak the language to a good level, it would be well worth it for the insights you’d get along the way.
Hotels In Wernigerode
**** – Ringhotel Weisser Hirsch – superb half-timbered hotel in a building dating from 1717, right on the main square, a few metres from the Town Hall (Rathaus)
**** – Boutique Hotel Anno 1910 – another beautiful hotel in a centuries-old building, in the heart of historic Wernigerode
*** – Hotel Alte Brennerei – 3-star hotel, 17th-century building on main street, great restaurant
*** – Apart Hotel Wernigerode – great self-catering option, very close to the centre of town
Places To Visit Near Wernigerode
Wernigerode is midway between two of the best places to visit in Germany – the World Heritage towns of Quedlinburg and Goslar. I’ve also written a separate article – the Germany Half-Timbered Towns Itinerary – outlining a short trip to the region, focusing on these three fascinating towns.
There are enough things to do in Quedlinburg to warrant at least an overnight stay. It’s considered by some to be the cradle of modern Germany, as it’s where Henry the Fowler, or Heinrich I, was crowned King of the newly-formed Kingdom of the East Franks, in 919 AD. This was formed by the three-way division of the Holy Roman Empire. Although its boundaries didn’t correspond by any means with those of the modern (or earlier versions of) Germany, it was the first forerunner of what was to become unified Germany 900 years later.
Quedlinburg is also the best-preserved town in Europe (and therefore the world) for its half-timbered houses. They come in all shapes, sizes and shades, and there are thousands of them. In many parts of the town it’s like stepping into a medieval fairytale, and it was on my European bucket list for many years before I finally got to visit Quedlinburg. Check out my guide to the most beautiful streets in Quedlinburg, and also the best churches in Quedlinburg to visit. And try to make an hour or two tovisit the stunning 10th-century St Cyriakus Church in Gernrode.
Both Quedlinburg and Wernigerode are on the popular Deutsche Fachwerkstrasse (German Half-Timbered Route). One place which I think also merits inclusion is Goslar, the historic mining town on the northern edge of the Harz. This amazing town, which is just across the provincial (and former national) border in Lower Saxony, is, like Quedlinburg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Quedlinburg, Wernigerode and Goslar make up my Germany Half-Timbered Towns Itinerary – showing some of the very best of this kind of architecture anywhere in the country, indeed Europe and the world.
There are easily enough things to do in Goslar to tempt you to a stay, possibly for two or three nights. You could visit the Rammelsberg, a millennium-old silver and copper mine on the edge of the town, and also explore the Kaiserpfalz, the 1000-year-old Imperial Palace much used by Holy Roman Emperors.
But for me the most fascinating things to see in Goslar are around its gorgeous Altstadt (Old Town). Some of the half-timbered houses are stunning, and look closer and you’ll see all kinds of ribald carvings, including a naked woman riding a goat backwards. Coin-pooping figures on buildings around the Marktplatz (market square) only add to the fun.
Best Things To Do In Wernigerode – Final Thoughts
I hope you’ve enjoyed this guide to Wernigerode. The town is still relatively off the beaten track for English-speaking visitors, but it’s easy to visit and incredibly rewarding. A little German goes a long way, but you’ll always find people in the tourism and hospitality trades who speak excellent English.
Wernigerode is in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, which I rate one of the best unexplored regions in Europe. It has an immense wealth of historic towns, churches, castles and more, and the relative lack of crowds makes it all the more enjoyable. Check out my article on the best day trips from Leipzig, in which I suggest more places to visit in the region, including fascinating Halberstadt, and the state capital, Magdeburg.
One of the great rivers of Europe, the Elbe, flows through the north of the region, and there are many more places to visit along its length. Check out my guide to the best places to visit on the river Elbe for more inspiration, including several World Heritage Sites along the way.
I also suggest browsing through my article on the best places to visit in eastern Germany for further inspiration. And also take a look at some of the articles below:
14 Famous Leipzig Landmarks To Explore
Visiting Nikolaikirche Leipzig – the church where the 1989 Revolution began
Frauenkirche Dresden – one of the most beautiful churches in Germany
One Day in Dresden – 24 hours in the Florence on the Elbe
14 Best Day Trips From Dresden
How To Visit The Bastei Bridge – one of the most spectacular landmarks in Germany
Things To Do In Görlitz – the gorgeous border city much loved by filmmakers
10 Best Things To Do In Meissen – the porcelain is just the start of it
10 Best Things To Do In Pirna – much-overlooked historic town just outside Dresden
Things To Do In Bautzen – medieval wonders in the ‘capital’ of the Slavic Sorb people
One Day In Hamburg – 24 hours in Germany’s great port city