Quedlinburg Old Town

Quedlinburg is a working catalogue of German timber framing. Houses here span the fourteenth to the nineteenth century, and because the town lost its industry early nobody had the money to pull them down, so whole streets survive with frames leaning at whatever angle four hundred years of settlement produced. On the Schlossberg above sits St Servatius, a Romanesque collegiate church of the twelfth century with a crypt and a treasury of medieval manuscripts and reliquaries. The oldest house in town, a post and beam structure from around 1310, is now a small museum of the craft itself, which is the right way round in a place like this.

What you actually see

• Schlossberg and St Servatius - the Romanesque church and its treasury on the rock above the roofs.
• The lanes below the castle steps - the densest run of leaning timber frames in the town.
• The Standerbau - a post and beam house from about 1310, now a museum of timber framing.
• Munzenberg - the facing hill of small houses on a former convent site, with the best view back.

When to go

April to October for open museums and courtyard tables. December brings markets held inside private courtyards, the local speciality, and much busier than the town normally is. Weekdays stay calm all year. Winter light is short but suits the frames, and room prices drop sharply outside the market weekends.

Honest expectations

Restoration is uneven, and behind the photogenic streets are frames still waiting for money, which some visitors find sad rather than romantic. The town is small and can be walked out in half a day. Cobbles and slopes are hard on wheels and knees. On Sundays almost everything except the churches is shut.

Nearby

The Harz narrow gauge railway, Wernigerode's castle and timber streets, and the Bode gorge at Thale.