High on a rock above Quedlinburg stands the Collegiate Church of St Servatius, a heavy Romanesque church that is one of the most important of its kind in Germany. The first church on the hill was connected to the Ottonian kings, and Henry the Fowler, the first king of the East Frankish realm in the early tenth century, was buried here. His widow Mathilda founded a convent of noblewomen on the site, which became powerful, with abbesses who were often relatives of the emperors and ran a small state of their own.
What you see today is largely twelfth-century, with a crypt that is among the finest in Germany, its carved capitals of animals and plants still sharp. The church treasury contains medieval manuscripts and reliquaries, and some of its finest pieces were stolen by an American soldier in 1945, though most were eventually recovered. The hill also carries the castle and the view over the town below, with its hundreds of half-timbered houses, most of them restored.
Quedlinburg lies at the northern edge of the Harz, where the mountains meet the Saxony-Anhalt plain, and the town itself is a World Heritage Site. The riding in the area is rewarding, with winding roads that climb from the plain into the hills, through forest and past small villages. The surface is generally good, curves are plentiful, and the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz, is within easy reach. The ride that includes this stop travels between Luther's death house at Eisleben and the Rammelsberg mines at Goslar, so you cross a lot of German history in a short space.
The town has twenty thousand people, so there are fuel stations, restaurants and plenty of cafés. Try a local sausage or a slice of the cake known as Baumkuchen, which is layered and baked on a spit, a speciality of Saxony-Anhalt. The cobbled lanes near the church are steep and rough, so park below and walk up.
Go in the morning, when the light on the Romanesque walls is warm, and the lanes are empty. Autumn colour in the surrounding hills is particularly pleasing.