Mining life and art surprises in Goslar

After a relatively short stay in Vienenburg, we continue our route to Goslar. The tickets are almost as cheap as a one way ticket in Berlin and we arrive there in around 10 minutes. We go fast through a more yellowish and grey than green yet sunny landscape that makes me feel good about the autumn. Since we've been there, at the beginning of November, the real winter had landed already in Harz.

Goslar used to be a mining town for centuries, but nowadays the extraction had stopped. As mining can bring revenues, at least for some, the city has also some big old buildings and a historical hotel, Hotel der Achtermann, offering sauna and other pleasures to the visitors, at very fair prices. As for me, I am surprised to discover near the central station a museum of modern art, hosted in a traditional half-timbered house. The museum offers since 1975 a price for outstanding artistic achievements, some of the recipients being Joseph Beuys, Calder, Henri Moore, Baselitz and Christo - that covered one of the mountains near the mine. The artists donated some works to the museum and this is how I have another chance to admire great art in the most unexpected places.

As it is a sunny weather, even though a bit cold compared to Berlin, I want to enjoy as much as possible being outdoors and for the next hours I am walking the small cobblestone streets, bordered by small one storey houses, decorated creatively with painted wood decorations. Out of the entire Harz area I visited in the last weeks, it has the most colourful architecture and I can hardly make a step without taking another picture.

There are many tourists around, but also locals enjoying the last beams of light of the year. Many coffee houses and restaurants are open on Petersilienstrasse (Parsleystreet) and Schilderstrasse. Many of the buildings were recently reconstructed and repainted, vut still keeping with their old age. Some of them were built as far as in the Middle Ages. Almost all the shops and institutions - including the local mosque - are hosted in such buildings which gives a certain charm to the modern life.

It is not yet time for a coffee break. We go up close to the mountains for another 20 minutes till we reach the yards of the Rammelsberg mines. The mountains around used to hide a lot of precious materials, such as gold, copper and silver. A piece of jewellery discovered in Hannover more than 3,000 years ago was made of gold from here, which gives a certain perspective of the old age of the local traditions. At the end of the 1980s, there were no more resources and the exploitation ceased. Nowadays the mines are part of the UNESCO heritage, and the mono-industrial area developed in the domain of services or with other new industries.

We are lucky to arrive in time for a guided tour in the underground. With a yellow protection cap and a Glückauf - the mining greeting before going to work, wishing each other to be lucky enough to return alive and safe after a couple of hours - we are ready for a new experience. I visited mines before, especially former golden mines, but none so well preserved. We descend 25 meters underground, on wooden stairs exactly as the miners did for centuries. It is not only cold, but also quite wet so we need to watch our steps.

The camera is catching beautiful colours on the walls, that we are explained that are the traces of vitryol a poisonous substance. In an interval of 100 years, almost 1,000 people working here died in accidents, but many more because of the substances inhaled during work. The water pollution used to be high, with consequences on the health of all the inhabitants of the area, but nowadays the dangerous substances were cleaned.

While listening to the stories of the daily life in the mine and the hardship of the work, I think that after all, it is good that the exploitation ended. The tour was very entertaining, explaining how everything works and how the exploitation tools developed in time. The guided tours are also available in English, French, Spanish, Danish, Chinese, Russian, Swedish or Polish.

After more than one hour in the underground, we must enjoy more sun and fresh air. I can hardly imagine though how it is to work from very early in the morning till late in the evening, without seeing natural light for days, maybe weeks. We need also a coffee to make the rest of the afternoon and we stop at Manuel coffee, in the center, where we resist the temptation of some beautiful cakes.

Unfortunately, it is about time to go to catch our train. Harz has many secrets that we promise to discover again soon.

For more insights from Goslar, have a look at the dedicated Pinterest board: http://www.pinterest.com/ilanaontheroad/goslar/

Back in the Harz mountains: Visiting Halberstadt

My first hour of getting to know Halberstadt, based on the slow walking the streets on the way from the central station to the central area was a big disappointment. Everywhere I was looking on the left and on the right side of the Richard Wagner street, all I was seeing were old style communist blocks of apartments. After beautiful cities like Quedlinburg and Wernigerode, I was ready to take the first HEX regional train to a more pleasant destination.

The weather was pleasant though and I still kept the hope to really find out the interesting places that I was supposed to visit during my stay. We walked more, noticing a slight improvement of the urban view: more interesting architecture although the streets remained mostly deserted. It was the day of the European elections, but except some old people walking their dogs, we did not encounter too many beings on the streets.

We tried to keep following the arrows guiding us to the historical area, while noticing even more surprising presences hidden in the front of ugly buildings.

Sooner, all the grey will be recent history. In the rhythm of the classical music, we entered the Gleimhaus, where we started with a contemporary exhibition about the works of the German author and film director Alexander Kluge, and continued with the local literary history. The museum was named after Johann Wilhelm Gleim, a local personality and poet, and literary partner of many German's famous literary personalities like Kleist or Lessing. The 'Freundschaftkreis'/'Circle of friends' that he built up in long years of intensive correspondence are the equivalent of the fast and communication of the social networks nowadays.

The meeting with the old city streets changed completely my view on Halberstadt, especially after seeing the half-timbered houses, typical feature of the architecture in the Harz mountains.

For more information about the area, we stopped next at the city museum, presenting an extensive historical overview of Halberstadt. Here we discovered, for instance, that one of the most famous brands developed here are some special canned 'wurst' produced since the 19th century and still available in the German supermarkets nowadays.

In the same yard, there is a special museum dedicated to the local flora and fauna, where you can also hear the different sounds of the many birds living in the Harz area. Since then, we are more careful listening the sounds uttered by the birds.

The Domsquare is the main attraction point of the historical center. The streets around are offering another views of the historical architecture.

After all, it was wise to not give up Halberstadt and continued to hope that I will see the better days of the city.

In the old times, Halberstadt used to have a significant Jewish population that grew permanently since the 17th century, till the WWII. One of the most important personalities was the Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer who introduced more secular studies in the curricula of the Orthodox learning centers in the German lands. We visited the remains of the Baroque synagogue, built by the banker Issachar Berend Lehmann, destroyed during the infamous Kristallnacht.

On the other side of the street, there is the Klaus synagogue, nowadays a museum and a documentary center. A bold cat, one of the many we encountered on the streets near the former Jewish quarter, followed us till there, and made her way through the objects of Jewish art made by the artist Rachel Kohn.

Nowadays, there are no Jews left in Halberstadt, but there is a coffee, Hirsch serving a very fine selection of kosher wines. Named after Aron Hirsch, a local middle class entrepreneurs in the years of glory of the Jewish life, it was created almost 10 years ago.

We tried a huge and delicious bagel with salmon, with fresh veggies, while talking with some of the guests about the place and the memories of Jewish life. Regularly, here are hosted concerts, some by Jewish musicians living in Germany. School children are offered from time to time the experience of a 'Jewish breakfast'.

But more interesting than the conversation were the home-made blintzes. We enjoyed our meals in the small interior garden, with a view to the Berend Lehmann museum.

Thereafter, we burnt the calories walking more on the old streets. Even we went sometimes twice on the same street, we didn't bother as the colourful view, sometimes with some lovely cats enjoying the sun, gave a certain feeling of well being. Even though the number of the people out on the streets that we meet after long hours of walking was easy to count on four hands.

Every time we discovered a new green angle, we realized how wrong we were to misjudge Halberstadt.

The time seemed to have stop many years ago behind the beautiful wooden doors remained mostly closed. Or at least we wanted to wish it was so.

More to the center, the modern life was omni present. The huge Roland, an usual presence near many German city halls, was a bit trapped near the parked cars, but still big enough to look far into the future and to the Harz mountains. The original townhall was built at the end of the 14th century and destroyed during the war. As most part of the city, it was rebuilt respecting the latest construction plans.

Near the townhall, there are the most coffees and restaurants - mostly Italian, but also Vietnamese -, many open on Sunday. After going near another ugly communist-looking area, we discovered Schutzenstrasse, that goes through a park, near the old city walls.

Am Kulk, there is the 15th century old Watertower, the only remainder of the former seven tower bordering the entrance in Halberstadt.

And when we thought we saw it all, we noticed beautiful horses. True is that we previously spotted the usual sign warning the passers by that they might meet horseback presences, but we could not believe our eyes till the actual meeting with the beauties.

On the way back to the old city, the only place where it seemed that the European elections mattered was at the section organized within the Martineum Gymnasium, a piece of interesting architecture itself. More people, mostly old, were coming and going through the big gates to express their political opinion.

Before returning to the train station, the last coffee stop, at the Loeper, where the delicious Ethiopian coffee brought back the energy consumed during the long hours of walking. Everything looked nice, except the surprise we had when after ordering a Coke and asking a slice of lemon and maybe some ice: we received some lemon juice instead that we were told to add to the glass, and some pieces of fridge snow instead of the ice cubes.

But by then, we knew already that Halberstadt is really worth a Sunday visit and we did not bother to argue against the usual Coke table manners. We were taught another good lesson in travel: never made a conclusion about a place only after the first 60 minutes of walking. There might be always something better waiting for you on the next street.

For more insights from Halberstadt, have a look at the dedicated Pinterest board: http://www.pinterest.com/ilanaontheroad/halberstadt/