Torfhaus is a scattering of buildings on the high road across the Harz, at about eight hundred metres, where the road crosses a wide, boggy plateau of moor and spruce. There is no village here to speak of, just a car park, a few places to eat and the visitor centre of the Harz National Park, and its popularity comes from a view: from the edge of the plateau you look east across a broad valley to the Brocken, 1,141 metres high and bare on top, the highest peak of the Harz. Altenau, six and a half kilometres away, and Bad Harzburg, nine, are the nearest towns for fuel.
The road is the B4, which climbs from Bad Harzburg in a series of long bends and straights through dense forest. It is a good, fast road, with a smooth surface and a limit enforced by cameras in places, and on a weekday morning it is an enjoyable climb. At weekends, it fills with day-trippers and traffic can be dense. The weather can be extreme: the Harz plateau is one of the foggiest and wettest places in Germany, with snow lying from November well into spring, and even in summer, mist and drizzle are common.
The Brocken is the stuff of legend, the mountain where witches are said to gather on Walpurgis Night, the thirtieth of April, in Goethe's Faust and in older folklore. The Brocken also gives its name to a strange optical effect, the Brocken spectre, in which a walker's shadow is cast on mist, ringed by a halo. In the Cold War, the area was a sensitive border zone, and Torfhaus was the last stop in West Germany before the barbed wire; from here, you could look across to the East German listening posts on the summit.
The moors around the settlement are among the most important in the region, and a boardwalk path leads across the Torfhaus Moor, with sundews, cotton grass and peat pools. In clear weather the walk is a quiet pleasure. Hot chocolate and soup are available from the little cafes.