HEXENTANZPLATZ - WITCH'S DANCE SQUARE

Above a deep valley of the Harz, the Bodetal, the Hexentanzplatz is a mythical place. This picturesque plateau, inaccessible by car, holds its name from the time when Charlemagne and Christian Francs subdued the pagan Saxons. This plateau was a Saxon place of worship; after their defeat, the Saxons would have chased the secret soldiers dressed in witches by overlapping brooms! Legends of legends stem from this… The plateau is one of the most picturesque places in the Harz; you can walk on the ridge that dominates the valley dizzyingly. There is a natural theatre, one of the oldest in Germany, inaugurated in 1903 by the stone. Each year, it celebrates a staging of the Night of Walpurgis (witches'night of the Germanic legends, on 30 April), described in Goethe's Faust. There is also the «Saxon Wall», a wall from a 1 500-year-old fortification.