Harz Edge Overnight from Hamburg · part 1

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Hamburg south gate

   Harburg was its own town for most of its history, and some residents still say so. Standing on the south bank of the Elbe, across the great river from Hamburg, it grew up as a Hanoverian and later Prussian harbour town, with its own castle, canal and industries, until the Greater Hamburg Act of 1937 swallowed it into the city. The old inner harbour has been reborn as a district of offices and cafes, and the technical university stands on a former industrial site. It is a rougher, more honest part of Hamburg than the lakeside villas of the north.

   Read the complete Hamburg south gate write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Hamburg south is where the day begins. Next is Lüneburg.

2. 2. Lüneburg fuel gate

   Lüneburg got rich on salt, and you can still see that in the brick. For centuries brine from under the town was boiled into the white salt that was shipped to Lübeck and used to preserve the herring of the Baltic, and the money from this trade paid for the Gothic town hall, the gabled merchant houses and the old crane by the Ilmenau. The Hanseatic League was good to Lüneburg. The streets are lined with stepped brick gables, many of them leaning a little because of subsidence from the salt mines below, which gives the whole old town a gently drunken look.

   Read the complete Lüneburg fuel gate write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Lüneburg is the fuel stop for this leg. Next is Wernigerode overnight edge.

3. 3. Wernigerode overnight edge

   Wernigerode calls itself the colourful town of the Harz, and it is no exaggeration. The old centre is a jumble of half-timbered houses in reds, greens and ochres, with carved beams and crooked upper floors, and the town hall at its heart looks like something from an illustrated book, with two pointed towers and a steep gable. It lies at the northern edge of the Harz, with a hilltop castle looking down from the slope and the high plateau of the Brocken in the distance.

   Read the complete Wernigerode overnight edge write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   A break here. Next is Sankt Andreasberg bends.

4. 4. Sankt Andreasberg bends

   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.

   Read the complete Sankt Andreasberg bends write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Sankt Andreasberg bends closes the day.