Day 15 December 6th Goslar



decorated home

Today we are going by rail to 

former alms houses

the town of Goslar.  Goslar remained on the western side of the divide after the last war.  The weather was bright and we had an early start, the modern, diesel train left Wernigerode at about 0915 and we were on our way.  We were met 

new friends

at Goslar station by our town guide who then for the

more new friends

 90 minutes gave a history and geography of the area.  It was evident that everybody in the town had made an effort to decorate their properties for Christmas.  The town became important because 

empty church crib

in previous centuries lead, copper and importantly silver 

church ceiling

were mined at the base of the nearby Harz mountains.  There were local mints for silver coins authorised by the emperor and the town became prosperous and there were many fine half-timbered houses and even the Kaiser (emperor) built a palace 

horse and carriage

here so that he could keep an eye on these crown resources.  Now there is some industry but they put great effort into attracting people (mostly German) to their Christmas market.  We visited a 

coin producer

church which had a beautiful crib which was empty at the beginning of advent.  We made some new friends of the metallic kind as 

old buildings

appropriate in this town based on metallic mining. We saw former alms houses, a model of the town, a water mill from the river and other important landmarks.  We were left at the edge of the market thinking that we would never retain all the information that had been imparted but such is the nature of these tours. We then had 

model of town



forest of lights

some time to explore, purchase items and get some local food.  We had a coffee and stollen cake in a coffee shop after doing a little exploring.  The market was interesting and included a forest of trees feature where we stopped for a glass of gluhwein.  After visiting all the places we thought we could take in and making the souvenir purchases we required, we sought refuge in a nearby 

ore with handprint

hotel and had a soup plus a cup of tea each.



Kaiser's palace

Suitably refreshed we carried on some more round the market before making gradual progress back to the train station.  We did go into a shopping mall and visited a supermarket

this is the place

 to a purchase a bottle of water for our long day of journeying tomorrow.  One feature of this town was it

had a Woolworth store which none of us including Americans had seen for several years.  Outside the station was a dedicated lump of metal ore with a hand imprint which signified the hand of the authorities looking after their entitlements.  We were soon back on the train for the short journey back to Wernigerode.

We had a meal in the hotel restaurant after having a briefing concerning the arrangements for the long journey home tomorrow.  After eating we did some packing & blogging before retiring early as we have an early start tomorrow – 0530 local time (0430 UK time).