Sankt Andreasberg is a small town of two thousand at roughly six hundred metres in the Upper Harz, a mining place that has lived on silver, in one way or another, for five hundred years. The lodes were worked from the sixteenth century, and the Grube Samson, a mine here, is famous for its water-driven ore hoist, which kept working until the 1900s and is preserved as a museum, an astonishing piece of engineering from the age of waterwheels. You can still see the old ditches and ponds that fed the mines across the hills, many of them now loved by walkers.
The town sits on a ridge among spruce woods, with the high Harz plateau around it, and the weather is a thing in itself: it is often foggy, wet or snowy for much of the year, and a summer day can start with cloud and finish with sun. Braunlage, about five thousand people, lies a few kilometres to the north-east and is the nearer place for fuel, lunch and a bigger choice of shops; the Wurmberg, Lower Saxony's highest peak at about 970 metres, rises next to it. The spruce forests on these slopes have been badly damaged by bark beetle and drought in recent years, and large areas stand grey and open, a landscape unfamiliar to those who knew the dark woods.
The riding is among the best in northern Germany. The road from Sankt Andreasberg runs across the plateau and drops through bends into valleys, with a good surface, plenty of corners and wide views when the sky is clear. Weekends bring many bikers, especially from Hamburg and Hannover, and police checks and speed cameras are used, so ride with common sense. Be careful with wet leaves, mud, and fog, and with the sudden cold at height, which can make a May morning feel like March.
Food in the Harz means hearty things: Harzer cheese, which is sharp and smelly; Schmorbraten; Kassler; and in autumn, game with mushrooms; with strong coffee and cake in the cafés. Late spring and early autumn are the best seasons, when the traffic is light. The old mining paths and ponds are a good excuse for a short walk.