The Harz - To be a tourist or not to be a tourist, that's the question

As you know by now, The Viking and I like to stay away from very popular touristic places and attractions. There are two main reasons for this.

The first reason is that we simply don’t like crowded places; we tend to become restless and simply don’t feel at ease. Maybe, it’s because when I still traveled with my parents, they always went to busy, crowded places. To be honest, I simply didn’t like it and when I was a teenager I often sought refuge in lonely places. And I always promised myself when I grew up never to go to crowded places again.

The second reason is that we simply like to go to lesser known places. Places that most people have never heard of. Places that are hardly mentioned in the travel guides. We feel more like travelers than tourists. And we simply love to show our readers that these places can be worth a visit too.

But sometimes we have doubts… Paris, for example. Let’s face it, it’s very popular. But on the other hand, it is such a beautiful city! And you can still discover lesser known museums or other attractions there as well.

In the Harz, we had – and still have – doubts too. One of the most popular attractions is the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways. According to Wikipedia, it

is a network of 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 ³⁄₈ in) gauge railways in the Harz mountains, in central Germany. It connects the principal towns of Wernigerode, Nordhausen and Quedlinburg and several smaller towns in the area with about 140 kilometres of track, much of which is steeply graded and picturesque. The most popular destination on the network is the Brocken, an old Soviet listening post on top of the tallest peak in the Harz mountains, accessed by a spiral railway line, the Brocken Railway. The railway is notable for running a significant number of its trains with steam haulage, …

On the one hand, I think it is quite an experience to see the Harz from a steam train. On the other hand, we don’t like to share this experience surrounded by dozens of people around us. And – as you might guess – it’s not a cheap experience either. And we are budget travelers.

This time, we limited ourselves to taking a couple of pictures of the steam trains. We are not sure yet what we will do next time when we are in the Harz. Anyway, here are the other pictures.

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