Circular hiking route - Time travel through the Orla valley - Pößneck

Start your route in the former industrial town of Pößneck, passing architectural witnesses of the past centuries of Thuringian industrial culture. Let yourself be taken back to a time when cloth makers, porcelain painters, and book printers pursued their daily work in Pößneck’s town center in narrow alleys and small workshops, but also in gigantic production facilities. Passing factory owners’ villas, you reach a picturesque environment of untouched nature towards the west. Discover rare orchid species or watch the red kite on its circular flight over the Zechstein reefs. Unique throughout Europe in their state of preservation, the reefs created more than 250 million years ago are a habitat for many animals and plants. For this reason, the Zechstein reefs of the Orla basin belong to designated protected areas and to the National Geopark Slate Land.

Past the Baroque castle Brandenstein, you dive into the last ice age of the Orla basin at the bison enclosure. The graceful animals take you on a journey to a time when ice age hunters and cave hyenas met in the Orla valley. Built 1000 years ago on a Zechstein reef, Ranis castle still towers visible far and wide. The old castle walls tell stories from the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, and historicism. Go on an underwater expedition in the castle museum and dive into the lagoon of the Zechstein sea into unknown animal and plant worlds of long past times. Let yourself be taken into the world of our ancestors with a "glimpse into the ice age." Visit the legendary Ilsen cave located beneath Ranis castle and discover fossil remains of the Zechstein sea on rock walls and cave crevices. The path leads southwards further into the Thuringian Slate Mountains. Past the Limberg volcano, active 300 million years ago, breathe the Thuringian forest air and relax far away from everyday worries. Amid spruce forests, enjoy once more the romantic view over the Orla valley before you return through Bodelwitz to the small-town idyll to relax.