The best traffic-free bike rides around Filzteich

With works by renowned international, national, and Saxon artists, the PURPLE PATH art and sculpture trail creates a unique exhibition in public space, connecting Chemnitz with the 38 surrounding towns and municipalities. It is the largest project of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 – and extends into the region. The installations and sculptures are located at significant sites and tell stories of people, craftsmanship, and industry. They invite visitors to discover these story(ies). "Everything comes from the mountain" is the narrative of the PURPLE PATH art and sculpture trail; 850 years of mining have deeply shaped the landscapes around Chemnitz – the Ore Mountains, Central Saxony, the Zwickau region. The extraction of silver, tin, cobalt, iron, kaolin, and uranium has determined life. Since 2019, the Ore Mountains/Krušnohoří Mining Region has been a UNESCO World Heritage site.

E-bike rental and charging station is located at the hotel "Am Kurhaus", Richard-Friedrich-Str. 16. This measure was taken as part of the preparations for the 2027 State Garden Show.

The 🟣 PURPLE PATH 🟣 is a sculpture trail that connects Chemnitz, the 2025 Capital of Culture, with 38 towns and cities in the region. Numerous artists have contributed works of various kinds, telling an unknown story of the region. More information at https://chemnitz2025.de/purple-path/ Tony Cragg "Stack" Bad Schlema Spa Park in Aue-Bad Schlema Material: Bronze "The patinated bronze of the abstract sculpture Stack by sculptor Tony Cragg, born in Liverpool, UK in 1949 and living in Wuppertal, evokes natural phenomena such as weathered rocks, polished wood, or volcanic smoke columns. Its layered geometric bodies and forms, repeated, rotated, and expanded into dynamic structures, also evoke ideas of geological models, digital data visualizations, or images from a scanning electron microscope. The iconic stacks, which Cragg has repeatedly modified in his work since the 1970s, have their artistic origins in geometrically stacked relics of industrial society, which are "keys to a bygone era that is our present" (Tony Cragg, 1987). The sculptures of the Turner Prize winner and multiple documenta participant evoke a state between nature and artificiality in a world of "semi-finished products" (Vilém Flusser). Placed in the Bad Schlema spa park, reconstructed after 1990, the 2019 sculpture Stack stands in direct proximity to the former Wismut Shaft 7b, from which uranium ore was mined at a depth of up to 278 meters since 1947. The Soviet-German Wismut AG extracted around 60% of its uranium ore requirements for its bomb production and nuclear power plants such as Chernobyl in the Ore Mountains and Thuringia, and destroyed spa houses, villages, and nature in Bad Schlema itself. Thus, Cragg's "Stack" also recalls this and simultaneously evokes the depiction of the earth's stratification in the Annaberg Mining Altar, created by Hans Hesse in the 16th century. (Text: Alexander Ochs / Ulrike Pennewitz)

I can't confirm whether the charging station is operational, as I was out on my racing bike. If anyone has experience with it, please let me know.

great castle 🏰 and always a nice destination on hiking and cycling tours

Plastered hall church from 1745/1755 on the site of a previous building. The west tower has a flat dome and lantern. Inside, a lectern angel from the early 18th century.

The Trögersche or Schmeilhaus is named after its temporary owners in the 17th and 18th centuries (a family of pharmacists and a council member) and after the publisher Karl Schmeil (who took over the Goedsche publishing house in 1891). Through the main entrance from Fürstenplatz, visitors enter a central entrance area, which can be considered exemplary of the Baroque design after 1720. In addition to the white stucco, the house features a light rose-colored paint finish. Source: https://www.montanregion-erzgebirge.de/welterbe/schneeberg/bergbaulandschaft-schneeberg/historische-altstadt-schneeberg/schmeilhaus.html

Built in 1771/1772