A two-day summer traverse of Germany's Harz mountains, swapping Berlin's city noise for deep spruce forests, granite ridges, and a lot of kilometres on tired legs. We started on the morning of July 29, 2024, in Schierke, a small village at the foot of the Brocken — the highest peak in northern Germany and the mythical setting of Goethe's Faust Walpurgis Night. The trail wound through the Harz National Park along stretches of the famous Harzer Hexenstieg ("Witches' Trail"), past mossy primeval forest and rushing streams. Twenty-two kilometres later, we pitched our tents at Campingplatz Polstertal and cooked a well-earned dinner on the gas stove with supplies grabbed from the Schierke supermarket — the frustration of a long first day softened by hot food and quiet woods. Day two took us north for another 23 kilometres to Goslar, a thousand-year-old imperial city and triple UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its old town holds roughly 1,500 timber-framed houses from the 15th to 19th centuries, alongside the Kaiserpfalz imperial palace and the legendary Rammelsberg mines — a fairytale reward for 45 kilometres of hiking.
