The best mountain hikes around Schwarzenberg/Erzgebirge

The absolute motivation jackpot for kids tired of running! 🎅 The Christkindweg in Boží Dar is a real hit for families. Our most important parent hack: Before you start, be sure to get the small notebook at the info center for 50 CZK (approx. 2 Euros). The kids can solve tasks at the numerous great game and puzzle stations and even get a small reward at the info center at the end! The route is lined with beautiful wooden figures, shelters, and playgrounds – boredom stands no chance here. A particularly lovely detail: the distances are often indicated along the way in "Kroku" (child steps). The short loop (5.6 km) is perfect for families and easily doable with a buggy or balance bike. 🎒🎁 Checked by @wanderfamilie.erzgebirge

Monument in honor of the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis, who was a frequent guest at Boží Dar. He wrote Zorba the Younger, The Life and Times of Zorba the Younger.

This column testifies that the Fichtelberg was one of 158 stations of the "Central European Triangulation" in 1864. During the Royal Saxon Triangulation, the land in Saxony was surveyed between 1862 and 1890, and a trigonometric grid was created at the same time, which was intended to serve as the basis for accurate maps.

The Traktor Oberwiesenthal sports club's luge track has been out of use for 35 years. Founded in 1955, the club was dissolved in 1990, and its successor, the Oberwiesenthaler SV 1990, saw itself as its successor. The naturally iced luge track, constructed from concrete elements and opened in the winter of 1969/1970 for the GDR luge training center, has been deteriorating since 1990 and is overgrown with vegetation. However, you can still walk the entire 1,100-meter-long track with its 18 curves and admire the buildings that enrich this lost place, such as the scoring booths and observation bridge. At the first Olympic luge competitions in Innsbruck in 1964, SC Traktor athletes dominated the field. Ortrun Enderlein and Ilse Geisler won gold and silver medals in the women's race, and Thomas Köhler and Klaus-Michael Bonsack won silver in the men's race.

The large peace bell on the Fichtelberg had to remain silent for six months in 2024. Stone throwing in May 2022 had so badly damaged the bell that its sound suffered. It was decided to stop ringing it and replace it with a new one. The old bell rang for the last time on Easter Monday 2024. Just in time for the mountain service on German Unity Day on October 3, the new bell was officially rung for the first time in the fall of 2024. The idea of using a peace bell to commemorate the peaceful revolution of 1989 in the GDR and German reunification in 1990 came from watchman Gerd Schlesinger and night watchman Jörg Eller from the Ore Mountains town of Schwarzenberg. The bell was also intended to be heard in neighboring Czechia and thus ring for a united Europe. The cast steel bell, already ninety years old at the time, was rung for the first time in 2010. The new bell was cast in Innsbruck by the Grassmayr company. At 2,700 kilograms, it is about 1,100 kilograms heavier than the old bell.

This monument in the park at the town hall honors Nikos Kazantzakis (1883 to 1957), a Greek novelist, poet, and playwright who lived and worked in a nearby forestry building from 1929 to 1931. His most famous work is the novel "Zorba the Younger," which was made into a film in 1964 with Anthony Quinn in the title role.

The small river Černá (Black Water) rises west of the Fichtelberg in Saxony, then flows into Czech territory and along the northern border of the Božídarské rašeliniště nature reserve. The river gets its name from the dark water, rich in humic substances, flowing from the numerous surrounding bogs. After 18.6 kilometers in the Czech Republic, the river flows back to Saxony and finally into the Zwickauer Mulde near Aue.

Since 1965, the Božídarské Peat Bog Nature Reserve has protected an 11.61 square kilometer series of raised bogs with spruce, pine, Scots pine, dwarf birch, heaths, and meadows. A carnivorous plant characteristic of peat bogs, the round-leaved sundew, also grows here. The largest peat bog in the Ore Mountains lies at an elevation of 940 to 1116 meters; its specific mountain climate creates challenging conditions for animals and plants.