Quedlinburg

My friend Sarah (also an expat teacher from  the U.S.) told me once that when her friends back home saw her pictures of Germany, they told her they kept looking for the gingerbread man...I was reminded of that when I was in Quedlinburg, a small town that escaped bombing in World War II. It seemed like something from a fairy tale, or at least a step back in time. 

Many of the cities' buildings date back as far as the 1400s (our hotel was relatively new, having been built in the 1650's).  Most of the time I felt like we should all be riding horses on those cobblestone streets, and that might have been easier than driving--the town is a maze of Einbahnstrassen.

view of the St. Nikolaikirche

view of the castle and St. Servatius church from the downtown area

It seems to me that some places in the former East Germany have a marketing problem.  This place is amazing, but it could use some good signs...at first I felt like the typical American tourist who couldn't figure out where she was going, but then I saw that the German tourists were just as lost!  We took a trolley tour of the town (though it wasn't anywhere close to the scheduled time); the tour was all in German, but that didn't stop us from understanding when the tour guide used the words "Amerikaner" and "Texas", and the collective gasp from the Germans when the sum of 6 million Deutsch Marks was mentioned was enough to make me sink a little lower in my seat. You see, the town's oldest church, St. Servatius, has an infamous Texas connection. 

St. Servatius Church, built in 1075

In 1945, Army officer and Texas native Joe T. Meador stole priceless artifacts from the church, and kept them in a safe deposit box in his hometown of Whitewright, Texas. After Joe's death, his siblings managed to sell some of the pieces, even after they had been warned that it was illegal to deal in stolen goods. The church recovered most of the pieces, but it had to pay over $3 million for them. I had never heard of this story, but it eventually became a book...I would read it if the story didn't make me so disgusted and embarassed.  Fortunately, most of the pieces were recovered and are now on display in a safe place in the church.

This Samuhel Gospel from the 13th century was stolen by Meador; it is now on display (minus a few precious stones) at St. Servatius (the picture is from a brochure--you cannot take photos!)

walkway to St. Servatius

a look at the rooftops from the "Burgberg"