Quedlinburg & Tangermünde

During my last couple weeks in Berlin meine Eltern (my parents) visited me for 8 days. We did several things in and outside of Berlin, including 2 bike tours (one of Berlin and one of Potsdam), visiting my favorite restaurants and my classrooms, watching the world cup at Fan Mile, and visiting one of Berlin’s many nearby lakes- Flakensee.

We of course did many other things and in the last couple days of my mom and dad’s stay we had a big decision to make. While my parents were here they wanted to see Berlin and everything it has to offer, but they also wanted to go to someplace else. We talked about two different options: We could either rent a car and drive to nearby small towns that had a medieval aspect or take an overnight train to München (Munich) and spend a day in one of our favorite cities (we had all been there before).

The more we talked about it the more we realized it would be a big time waster to go to Munich (spending around 14 hrs on a train to be there for a day). Moreover, we had all been to Munich before. My dad had done some of his own independent research and found two towns in the vicinity of Berlin: Tangermünde & Quedlinburg.

Aerial view of Tangermünde from one of their many towers

 
Tangermünde was our first stop on our trip and was about 2 hrs outside of Berlin. It was a small town (only took about an hour and a half to explore) and showed a side of Medieval history that I hadn’t seen in Germany yet. It dates back to the early 11th century and lays directly on the Elbe River. It has a Medieval wall surrounding the entire city and several different towers overlooking the River. The city was very cool and was small enough that we could eat lunch (at a local restaurant with locally brewed beer) and still make it to another city within the same day.

Outside view of Tangermünde showing the medieval wall surrounding the city

A row of ‘old style’ looking houses

Quedlinburg was our second stop and was around 2.5 hours outside of Berlin and 1.5 hrs from Tangermünde (depending on how fast we drove on the Autobahn). We left Quedlinburg and arrived around 3 PM.  We explored the city- which took a little longer that Tangermünde. This town was especially cool because of its long history. It dates back to the 9th century (and maybe a little bit earlier) and has a huge connection with the church, at first Catholicism and then following the revolution of Martin Luther the city turned towards Protestantism and Evangelicalism. We definitely saw evidence of this (seeing at least 5 different churches, each with there own bell tower). Quedlinburg was also super interesting because of its Medieval architecture, it is one of the most well-preserved historic cities in all of Europe (miraculously escaping major destruction in WWII). You can see architecture from 5 different centuries and enjoy each while sipping on a beer or coffee in the Town’s main square.

Quedlinburg’s Rathaus (city hall) located in their main square

We ate dinner at a steak restaurant (it had been awhile since I had eaten steak) and made our way back to Berlin. It ended up taking us an extra hour due to faulty navigation- don’t worry I am getting better with maps- but we finally arrived back in Berlin at 11:30. The trip was very nice and it gave both my parents and I the opportunity to see something new that we hadn’t seen before. Yes familiar places that you know you like are great to go to (like Munich), but if you never try anything new, you’ll never experience anything new.

One of the many churches in Quedlinburg