Via Romea Germanica Day 15: Wolfenbüttel - Hornburg

Wenn du es träumen kannst, dann kannst du es auch tun.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

- Breakfast mat 

After breakfasting with my host Jörg, I walked back along the riverside path we had taken into town the previous afternoon. The half-timbered buildings of Wolfenbüttel were even more beautiful in the morning sunshine.

I returned to the cathedral,  even though I knew it didn't officially open until 10, and hung around between the parish office and the church itself, waiting to see if anyone would show up. Sure enough, after a few minutes a woman came out of the cathedral through a small back door, carrying a bag of garbage. I spotted her, she spotted me and we headed toward one another with equal interest. The Polish cathedral caretaker had walked to Santiago twice, by two different routes, carrying a backpack that was way too heavy, she admitted in a form of German that was easier than usual for me to understand. So she knew exactly what I wanted: a pilgrim stamp! And to see the cathedral, of course.

Begun in 1608, Wolfenbüttel cathedral is considered to be the first major church to be actually buolt as a Protestant church, rather than converted from Catholic to Protestant. 

The caretaker also had the keys to the Trinitatskirche, just a block away, and she accompanied me there, let me in, showed me around, gave me another stamp and wrote in my pilgrim credential in Polish. Then I realised why I could understand her better than other people - German was not her native language. The same thing happened to me with a Polish priest in France!

The early 18th-century Trinitatskirche has a splendid all-white interior - ideal for weddings - with a Rococò organ loft and columns that look like Carrara marble but are actually made of wood, painted to look like marble!

Leaving Wolfenbüttel town centre behind, I stopped in a café in Linden, in the outskirts of Wolfenbüttel,  for a second breakfast. Today's route was more geographically interesting; the landscape was no longer absolutely flat, but I climbed and descended low, gently rolling hills, from the top of which I could clearly see the Bockel, the highest peak in the Harz mountains (though only just over a thousand metres high). The path zigzagged to cross streams, avoid marshes and skirt the grounds of a private castle. 

The way was pretty, and the weather perfect - except for a strong wind blowing from the east all day. During the last few kilometres I was walking straight into the wind, which was quite exhausting. I was happy to see the first houses of Hornburg come into view! 

Hornburg

The town of Hornburg has a population of less than three thousand, but it has an ancient history as a centre of importance for growing hops for beer-making, which are in fact depicted in the carvings on some of the town's half-timbered houses (Fachwerkhäuser in German). 

First mentioned in 994, Hornburg became the birthplace of Pope Clement II in 1005. In 1512 the town burnt down, and was rebuilt with the beautiful Renaissance half-timbered houses still standing today.

The house in the last picture, originally a school of Latin and now part of the parish community centre, is the only half-timbered building in Germany with two rows of writing on the same beam, according to historian Thomas Dahms, who is a goldmine of information on buildings of this type and their historical significance. We met with Thomas, who is the president of the European and German associations of the Via Romea Germanica, briefly after dinner for a whirlwind tour of some of the most significant buildings in the town. 

I say "we" because, for the first time, I shared my accommodation in the Jugendraum or youth room of the church community centre (in a newer building, not the half-timbered one) with another pilgrim! And a very special pilgrim, too: Dagmar is the author of a book on German pilgrimage routes, the title of which translates as 111 reasons to be a pilgrim. 

With author Dagmar and historian Thomas

The Jungendraum - I bagged the sofa on the left because it's the same as the one I have at home 😄

Wolfenbüttel  - Hornburg 24 km