Baumannshöhle - Rübeländer caves — Attraction in Oberharz am Brocken

Definitely recommend it! I myself read reviews doubting whether to visit or not and if you doubt I will describe in detail. The tour is group driven, you don't need to book it. You buy a ticket, where the start time is indicated. The guide is in German, but we were lucky and the boy duplicated the main points in English, which was a pleasant surprise. The cave itself is always cold, take care of your feet and outerwear. It's 8 degrees in both winter and summer. The excursion lasted 1 hour. Very interesting for both adults and children. You spend an hour wandering through an incredibly old cave with natural wonders in the form of stalactites and stalagmites. Everything is illuminated and the guide controls it with a remote control, drawing your attention to certain points. The moment with music and darkness was particularly moving. Photos and videos are not allowed for security reasons. They take a group photo and you can buy it afterwards for 7 euros. All in all it was amazingly interesting to even look at this wonder, and if you also know German, it will be interesting to learn the facts about it all. And we even saw some...

Group tour in German. Your ticket will tell you when your group enters. If unlucky, you'll have to wait an hour like we did. Read the displays in the entry (do it twice to burn off 10 minutes), because that is all they have in any language but German. The displays in the entry are very small and minimal, but they contain interesting information. The English audio tour was not compatible with our phones (we all have different iPhones). They did not have any kind of brochure or booklet that could be used instead. There is no signage in the cave, so you are dependent on the German guide for any info. Our German guide (maybe around 65-years-old?) did not speak a word of English. We were there on a rainy day in October and it was not that cold in the cave. My youngest loved the drip stone formations, but even he was counting down the minutes to leave since we only understood words here and there. It would not be hard to provide a small booklet or some signage in the cave. As for the caves themselves, fine, some...

We are tourists from abroad, and this place turned out to be very unfriendly to international visitors. The ticket cashier did not speak English and refused to cooperate with us until we somehow managed to communicate in German.

Before entering, the ticket checker warned us that it is extremely cold inside and that a jacket is required. As foreign visitors, we had seen no warning about this in advance and had nothing suitable to wear. We went back to the cashier to cancel our tickets and request a refund. Instead of handling this professionally, she spoke to us in an unpleasant and agitated tone in German, apparently because processing a refund required her to actually do some work rather than sit outside smoking.

Overall, it was a very disappointing experience. In a tourist location, one would expect at least some effort to communicate in English or to show understanding towards...