Nordhausen is the urban centre of northern Thuringia, sitting where the Harz begins to rise from the plains. It is not a pretty half-timbered showpiece like Quedlinburg, partly because bombing in 1945 destroyed much of the old centre, but it has enough weight for a serious day.
The hardest and most important visit is Mittelbau-Dora Memorial, where concentration camp prisoners were forced to build V-2 rockets in underground tunnels. Nordhausen also has a gentler Harz identity: the Harz Narrow Gauge Railway starts here for steam journeys into the mountains, and the town's tram network has an unusual connection to the narrow-gauge line.
In the centre, look for the Roland statue, the cathedral area, and the old distilling tradition behind Echter Nordhauser korn. Nordhausen is best treated as a sober, practical base with several distinctive anchors rather than a romantic old town.