Goslar is a place that makes you want to stay the night. The town lies on the northern edge of the Harz mountains, in Lower Saxony, with a medieval centre of timber-framed houses, slate roofs and crooked lanes that is on the UNESCO World Heritage list together with the nearby Rammelsberg mine. About forty-three thousand people live here, but the old town feels much smaller, and in the evening, when the day-trippers have gone, the cobbled lanes are quiet.
Wealth came from the mountain. At Rammelsberg, just outside the town, miners dug silver, copper, lead and zinc for around a thousand years, until the mine closed in 1988, and the ore paid for the town's churches and merchant houses. The emperors noticed. In the eleventh century, the Salian rulers built a great imperial palace, the Kaiserpfalz, which was restored in the nineteenth century, and the town became a favourite place for imperial assemblies. The market square has a glockenspiel on the town hall, with a mechanical show in which scenes from the mining past revolve at set hours.
For a rider, the Harz is a joy. The roads climb from Goslar through spruce forest toward Bad Harzburg and the Oker valley, with good surfaces, long curves and gentle gradients, and with a view back across the plain. In recent years, many of the spruce forests have been devastated by drought and bark beetles, and the hillsides are scarred with grey stands of dead trees, a sobering sight. Weather can change fast in the mountains, with fog and drizzle on the ridge, and in winter the roads can be icy.
As a place to sleep, Goslar offers a wide range, from small guesthouses in half-timbered houses to modern hotels outside the centre, and most can find a place for a motorcycle in a yard or garage. Fuel is easy to find on the main roads at the edge of town, with Langelsheim a short ride away. Evening meals of Harz specialities include game, mushrooms and the region's sausages, followed by a local beer. After a long day, an early night in an old room with creaking floors is hard to beat.