Land: Lower Saxony
This old imperial city on the northern fringes of the Harz owed its origin in the 10th C. to the discovery of a rich vein of silver on the Rammelsberg, and as a free imperial city it reached its peak of power and prosperity in the early 16th century. It still preserves most of the
old town walls built at that time, with their massive gates and towers, its medieval churches, the Kaiserpfalz (imperial palace) and many handsome half-timbered buildings - an attractive townscape which survived the Second World War unscathed.