Wernigerode, Germany

Wernigerode is a town of about 33,000 residents on the Holtemme River at the northern edge of the Harz Mountains in Saxony-Anhalt, first documented in 1121. The medieval Old Town rises toward Wernigerode Castle, a hilltop fortress dating to 1213 and rebuilt between 1862 and 1885 in the Romantic Historicism style. The 1497 Town Hall ranks among the finest Gothic timber-framed town halls in central Germany, while the Kleinhaus at Kochstraße 5, built in 1740, measures just 1.75 m wide and 1.85 m tall at its front. Since 1899, the Harz Narrow Gauge Railway has carried steam trains up the Brocken, the highest peak in northern Germany at 1,141 m.