Blankenburg lies at the foot of the Harz Mountains and combines impressive palace and garden architecture with a historic old town and villas from the Art Nouveau and Gründerzeit periods.
The 100-hectare complex of the Blankenburg Palace Gardens is one of the largest and oldest in Saxony-Anhalt and is part of the state initiative “Gartenträume”. The gardens of the large and small palaces include the terrace garden, the Orangery Square, the Mountain Garden with tea house and Princesses’ Tower, the large palace park with palace pond, the Pheasantry Garden and the Luisenburg.
In the old town you can visit the historic town hall, the mountain church St. Bartholomäus and Germany’s only historic hostel museum.
A little outside the town, on a rock spur, lies the castle and fortress Regenstein. The open-air museum displays architecture carved from sandstone, with 32 preserved rock chambers and moats. Nearby, on the Romanesque Route, you’ll find the Cistercian monastery Michaelstein with its herb and vegetable gardens.
Around Blankenburg, hiking trails lead to the legendary Devil’s Wall, to sandstone caves and to stamping points of the “Harzer Wandernadel”. Cyclists will find a variety of tours on the European Cycle Route R1 and in the cycle network of the northern foothills of the Harz Mountains.
For families, there’s the Blankenburg Climbing Park, the Harzkristall Glass Factory in the Derenburg district and the open-air biological pool “Am Thie”. Blankenburg thus offers a diverse leisure programme for all age groups.
