Quedlinburg Things to Do

The cosy and unique 17th century Speicher Building is the setting for this museum where you can see painted glass but also take part in workshops or paint your own mug yourself if you are a whole family. When it has dried, you come back to pick it up. To do that, please call the number below to make sure they can arrange it that particular day. Children will also like the colour and light exhibition.

Over the city of Quedlinburg, her old buildings and her surroundings a quite unique magic rests both in scenic like in a historical relation. The Castle hill with his Church in which the Grave of the first German King, Heinrich I. is. Then the Coining Mountain with his picturesque little Houses, from both Mountains a marvelous View of the resin and the Town comes.
Quedlinburg with his medieval ones town center and the many frame-work houses restored lovingly as the biggest German area monument the UNSECO belongs to the world cultural heritage.

The hospital was founded in 1433 by the Quedlinburger robe tailors "All misery to utility and pious" - seems to be their motto - Hmmm... a jolly bunch then those robe tailors (or maybe something is lost in translation ;-)). Anyway, after extensive rehabilitation in 2000/2001, it has now been made into dwellings suitable for the elderly.

Legend (and a memorial plaque) has it that this is the very place where the Saxon duke Heinrich received the German regals as told of in a famous song by Vogl. Hence Quedlinburg has the honour of being where the German "First Reich" was created.

We were never inside (the white building), but this is the house where poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock was born in 1724. The house itself is in a 1560s Lower Saxon half timbering and very nice. In 1899, it was bought by the town council to house a museum about the poet and now also has exhibitions on other famous locals.

King Heinrich (read further tips) was buried in a church building here already in 936 but what you see today was started in 1129. If you want to see the royal tomb, head for the crypt. There is also nice stairs up to the choir. Those who know their architecture says there is a Lombardian influence on the style, but I can only see the general romantic. The towers were a later addition and that they look the way they do today is because the church was bombed in 1945 and during the repair work, their roofs were lowered. The most famous part of the church is the treasury where the Domschatz is kept. There is a bizarre twist to the church in that the nazis of course knew that Heinrich I was crowned here and created the First Reich. That is why they held all sorts of events here in 1938, including Heinrich Himmler by the altar, recognising himself as the second Heinrich for the Third Reich...

Quedlinburg's smallest street is in fact a small alley and started off as the shoemakers' yard. You find it just off the market square where you enter a "gate" and end up in a small yard with more half-timbered houses. Some have book shops and such and it is all very pretty. Several houses have doors which close at the base to keep animals out but which have an open top half so that the residents could talk to passing people. People were coloquially known as "klön" which is why the doors are called Klön-Türen. You can see another picture under my hotel tip which also shows the wooden counters that the shoemakers could fold up to use as window shutters at night.

The first mentionings of the town hall are from 1310, and just like everywhere else, a townhall in them days was used not only for town proceedings but for banquets and all sorts of events. The Renaissance facade you see today is from a rebuilding 1616-19 and the split roof and nice tower are the only Gothic things left standing. In 1901 the town hall was expanded and also got further interior decorations in the form of historic Quedlinburg moments on glass and walls.