When I visited my family in the Harz national park in Germany last week, it was my biggest wish to take a ride with the Harz narrow gauge railways. This is a very picturesque, nostalgic train ride through the Harz forest‘s narrow and sometimes slightly steep paths. We decided to take the 1950s vintage steam locomotive from Alexisbad to Gernrode (which nowadays is almost exclusively used by tourists due to increased prices) and to continue from there to Quedlinburg, a UNESCO world heritage site.

Alexisbad is a tiny town with some historic and unfortunately many abandoned buildings.

You‘re allowed to stand outside for most of the train ride as the view from there is best!

It got really smokey at times so it‘s better not to sit in the front wagon!

If you‘re into trains, you‘ll love the souvenir shop at Gernrode – locomotive shaped pasta, train magazines, t-shirts and much more…

Quedlinburg‘s old town is famous for it‘s medieval buildings and every year streams of tourists come to visit its‘ famous Christmas markets.

You can easily take a few hours wondering around the cute streets, eating lunch in one of the cute outdoor cafés and shopping for antiques inside the many hidden courtyard.

If you like historic train rides and experiencing nature, history and a beautiful city all in one, I hope I could interest you in taking the „Harzer Schmalspurbahn“ and visiting Quedlinburg. Next time, when I‘m back in the Harz, I would like to take the vintage locomotive all the way up to the Brocken mountain, the highest peak of the Harz mountain range!