Quedlinburg is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Germany, with roughly thirteen hundred half-timbered houses, a number that is hard to believe until you have walked its streets. The whole old town, with the castle hill and the abbey church, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1994. The houses date from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and many have been restored with care.
The history is older than the houses. In the tenth century, Quedlinburg was a favourite residence of the early German kings of the Ottonian dynasty, and Henry I, who founded the dynasty, is said to be buried in the crypt of the collegiate church of St Servatius, on the hill above the town. For centuries an abbey for noble women stood here, with powerful abbesses who sometimes ruled as princesses. The Romanesque church, with its massive twin towers, is a fine example of the style, and the church treasury holds a few precious relics.
The old town is a delight to walk, with cobbled lanes, a handsome market square with the town hall and a statue of Roland, and a number of small museums. Among them is a museum devoted to Lyonel Feininger, an American-German painter and Bauhaus teacher who loved the town. Quedlinburg was also known for seed growing, and a huge acreage of flowers and vegetables once surrounded the town. The poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock was born here in 1724.
For riders, Quedlinburg is the end of a day in the Harz, reached by quiet roads along the northern edge of the hills, through farmland and small villages. The roads are gentle, with a surface that is mostly good and traffic that is light, apart from the tourist season. Fuel is on the edge of town, and it is best to leave the bike in one of the car parks outside the historic core. In the evening, the old streets are lit by lamps, and the sound of church bells carries across the roofs. Weddersleben, four and a half kilometres away, is a village with little for a visitor.