Railway Touring Co Harz Mountains Trip

[STEVIEBOY1]

Has anyone ever been on one of RTCs Holidays to the Harz Mountains? I see they have one in Oct/Nov and wonder what it would be like, early starts/late finishes etc.? Are their overseas trips good?

 

[PhilipF]

I do wonder why people feel they need to use these "organized" trips. There are some advantages - main one being you don't have to 'look' for somewhere to stay each night. Agree it can be risky arriving in a town with few hotels, and they all full! Never happened to us, though I will admit to a near go when we arrived in Stockholm at eight in the evening, and had a hell of a job to find one
Couple of years ago we took our own trip to the Harz. We picked the town of Quidlinburg as a good place to centre ourselves. Turned out to be a most excellent "touristy" little town. Try on your own, you certainly will not reget doing so

 

[blackfive460]

I do wonder why people feel they need to use these "organized" trips. ...
...Try on your own, you certainly will not regret doing so

I'd second that having just returned from my third trip to the area in the last three years.
There are plenty of hotels handy for public transport in the area; I've always stayed in Wernigerode.
Aside from traveling on HSB, the hotels will give you a booklet of discount vouchers which also allow free travel on most service buses in the Harz region.

Last year I had a longish stay in the area starting in Nordhausen then travelling on to Wernigerode using the remarkably good value HarzTourCard which at 18€ (the same price as a single from Nordhausen to Wernigerode) is valid for three days on all of the HSB (except Schierke to the Brocken) plus buses and some DB and HEX trains.
I spent the other two days on the Harzquerbahn and Selkatalbahn and then got a three day ticket for the HSB to do the Brockenbahn.

To be fair, RTC's tour does include the Rübelandbahn and a bit of main line steam but I'd rather have the flexibility and avoid paying almost £2000!

 

[Greenback]

The main advantage of such organised tours for some is that everything is arranged for you, you have a tour leader or guide and travel with others who are likely to have similar interests.

There's no right way or wrong way to do it, just whatever suits the individual traveller. Though it's true to say that a DIY trip allows you more choice and flexibility to do what you want rather than what has been arranged.

 

[IanD]

Plus this tour claims to be using some routes you wouldn't normally get to traverse.

 

[steamybrian]

A few years ago I went with "Railtrails" (office in Leek, Staffs) to the Harz Mountains. There were two early mornings of having breakfast at 0600hrs and one of those was on the day of departure to enable us to obtain connections right through Germany, Belguim, Brussels then Eurostar to be in London for early evening.
The advantage of organised trip was that we had our special train double headed with two mallets and travelled over the entire system steam hauled.
The cost of the whole holiday included staying in a top hotel in Wernigerode was good value.

Just checked Railtrails web site and 7 day tour to Harz commencing 7 October all inclusive for around £1,000

 

[Gordon]

.
Depends what you want the experience to be like. I tend to favour DIY for operations like the remaining German steam operated ng lines, as I prefer gricing 'real' regular services rather than specials.

The Harz is dead easy to do DIY as it is a tourist area with plenty of accomodation - from hotels to private rooms (Zimmer Frei) - easily bookable nowadays on the various hotel booking sites.