Brocken - the highest harz point

hills, deep gorges -- the landscape of the Harz is nothing if not varied. And it is one of Germany’s most tradition-steeped regions.

When the Alps were still considered inhospitable and the Black Forest was waiting to be discovered by the English and the French, the Harz mountains exuded an attraction for artists, students – and not least, poets.

The Harz mountains, 90 kilometers (56 miles) long, 30 kilometers wide, and some 400 million years old, straddle the border between what was once East and West Germany, in the central part of the country.

The 1,142 meter (3,747 feet) peak called the Brockenberg, or Brocken Mountain, has an ancient reputation of being a haunting ground for witches, goblins and other creatures in the pagan pantheon. The well-traveled Goethe called the Brockenberg his favorite mountain, and gave it a place in literary history by using it as the setting for the witches’ orgiastic Sabbath scene in Faust.