Goslar sits on the northern edge of the Harz mountains and the central German plain — a convenient base for either. Half-timbered Wernigerode, the imperial cathedral town of Quedlinburg, and the steam railway up the Brocken are all within an hour by car. Hildesheim, with its Romanesque churches, is forty-five minutes north. Hardier hikers head south into the Nationalpark Harz: the chair-lift at Bad Harzburg drops you straight onto the marked summit trails.