Germany's Hochrhoner path offers boundless fun

Jun 16, 2009, 12:26 GMT

Tann, Germany - Somewhere along here, 20 years ago, lines of Trabis ­ the standard car of East Germany ­ must have waited to cross the inter-German border after the Iron Curtain collapsed in 1989.

This is the Hochrhoner path, which meanders through towns like Andenhausen and Theobaldshof, crossing through three German states in the middle of the country and crossing the border between what used to be West and East Germany.

Signs of that time, only two decades removed, still remain. There are weather-beaten guard towers, which used to watch over East German border patrols and tanks. Now they accompany hikers on the 175- kilometre long premium path through three federal states.

It stretches between spa towns like Bad Salzungen in the state of Thuringia and Bad Kissingen in Bavaria. It also takes in the UNESCO biosphere reserve of Rhon. There's only one path on each end, but toward Kissingen, in the middle, hikers can choose between several paths.

One leads past the Wasserkuppe (Water Peak), the highest mountain in the Rhon. From the bare summit, multiple trails lead down to the valley. There's also an old US radio station, Point Alpha, another relic of the Cold War.

Heading east, a several kilometres shorter trail leads along the plateau of the Rhon range and brings the hiker to the red and black moors.

The two paths rejoin near the town of Tann, at the Katzenstein (cat rock) mountain, before leading up to the town of Pless and onward to Bad Salzungen.

The favourite route is the standard high Rhon circuit through the heart of the Rhon over the eastern and western routes, without the detours into the spas,² says Geerd Muller of the Rhon Tourist Information Centre.

A hundreds year old brewing tradition in the Franciscan monastery of Kreuzberg can prove just as tempting as the Wasserkuppe or the legendary boulder-covered slopes of the Milseburg, at the foot of which Celts created a massive fortifying wall.

But anyone who really wants to see a lot of sights along the way has some options. The sights in the volcanic rock areas are unbeatable: there are the seemingly endless view from the sloping peaks and valleys, the paths along the broad fields of mat-grass and through the largest birch forests of central Europe, the lonely plateaus and dark highmoors.

Local tourist bodies don't seem so interested in focusing on the shared history of the inter-German border. There are hardly any signs commenting on the years-long division of the countries that left such a mark on the region.

Wanderers between Tann and Bad Salzungen cannot help but notice the abandoned guard towers used by East German border troops and the stone paths. One can see the base of a company of the People's Army behind barbed wire. The former border area still cuts a swath through the woods.

But some stories are remembered in Tann's museum. Three weeks after the fall of the wall, about 300 people from East Germany were allowed to cross the border to have a reunion in a bar with the people of Theobaldshof, in West Germany. They gave the border guard their words of honour that they would come back which they all did by midnight.

Nowadays, the former border guard runs Tann's Tourism Centre.

Information: Rhon Info Centre, Wasserkuppe 1, 36129 Gersfeld (Tel: 06654/91 83 40, E-Mail: touristmus@rhoen.de); Tourst Information Rhon, Sporleinstrasse 11, 97616 Bad Neustadt/Saale (Tel: 09771/94 670).

(Internet: www.rhoen.de/hochrhoener/ ; www.rhoenklub.de ; www.rhoentourist.de ).

(Point Alpha Memorial: Platz der Deutschen Einheit 1, 36419 Geisa)