Through the Prießnitzgrund to the Heller — dream trails on Dresden Heath

Father's Day hike with my old man through the Priesnitzgrund and over the Heller. Including a stop in Hellerau, a rest at the "Ant Meadow," and a view from the Proschhübel. Highly recommended hike.👍🖤💛

Length: 12 km; Shortened version without a detour to Hellerau 3.0 km less, with a tour of dump 1 an additional 2.3 km Olbrichtplatz is the central square of Albertstadt, which was built in 1873 in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War (1870/71). It was once Germany's largest military city and is now a district of Dresden with a strong influence on industry, administration and culture. We turn on Stauffenbergallee in the direction of the nearby former garrison church, today St. Martin. Today's Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr with its spectacular design is visible on the left (photo). On the right side of the street, at the beginning of the viaduct, we descend a stairway to the Prießnitz valley floor. The 23 m long and 75 m high bridge structure was previously named after Carola, the wife of Crown Prince and King Albert respectively, which is also visible in the monogram with a crown at the top of the central arch of the viaduct. If we now walk upstream, we see on the other side a series of stone sculptures (photo) that were carved out of the fence pillars there in 2001 by various artists and partly decorated with other materials - all very creative and worth seeing! Walking up the river, we see the area under the control of the Bundeswehr on the right edge of the valley, part of the barracks area from the end of the 19th century. The New Bridge, reached after just under a kilometer, is a handsome arched bridge with lying and upright sandstone blocks on both sides as well as railings; it was already mentioned in 1572. After another 2 km you reach the Küchenbrücke, newly built in 2001, where the Prießnitz is crossed by Diebssteig and Moritzburg-Pillnitzer Weg, which are important historical paths that at least partially extend beyond the forest area. The name of this bridge possibly comes from the fact that the hunting parties of the Electoral Saxon court came here for a final refreshment. This is suggested by the entry Ann der Küchen on a map that was created around 1600 and can probably be attributed to B. Zimmermann [1]. At the Küchenbrücke we turn left on the paths mentioned and reach the valley cut up to the railway line built along Prießnitzgrund in 1844/45 and further to the end of Moritzburger Weg street (commercial area) or to Königsbrücker Straße. The latter goes back to one of the late medieval main routes, the Langebrückerstras, marked with the capital letter L and a dot [2]. After crossing the street, we can look for the historic stone cross (Jonas Cross) near the city stop, which commemorates the death of the squire Jonas Daniel in 1402. After 150 m we then have to decide whether - depending on our mood and time - we want to continue hiking to the left towards Heller (marked by a yellow line and green dot) or whether we should take a detour of almost an hour to nearby Hellerau. We head straight for Hellerau along the Moritzburger Weg and first come to the Klotzscher Weg street that branches off to the right. Here we have another historical main route in front of us, the connection between Altendresden and the village of Klotzsche, known around 1600 as Klotzscherstras [2]. The passage leading through the Hellerwald on the left is also part of it; In autumn 2022, after a thorough map comparison, it was marked again with the original route sign for a long time. We have now reached the southeastern tip of Hellerau. This relatively young district was designed and built after 1906 on the initiative of the manufacturer and social reformer Karl Schmidt (1873 - 1948). The settlement embodies the idea of the unity of work, living and culture. This district is characterized by mostly curved streets with a uniform, characteristic collection of terraced, semi-detached and single houses as well as villa-like buildings. The aspect of work is represented by the company Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau (DW), which is directly adjacent to the inhabited area and stood for high-quality, handcraft-inspired industrial production, particularly of wooden furniture. Today it focuses on the interior design of yachts.

After almost two years, I was able to draw a line under the tours of the Arbeitskreis Dresdner Heide today. 33 tours took me to different corners of the Dresdner Heide. There was a lot of new things to discover and I took away some ideas for further tours. Today's tour was largely identical to tour A2. The connecting section between the Gartenstadt and the Prießnitzgrund was new. We shortened a part of the Prießnitzgrund because with spring, the density of cyclists has also increased again. You are constantly busy jumping aside. Instead, we incorporated a small detour to the Military History Museum - we hadn't been there for a long time. Finally, we enjoyed the view from Halde 2. That was a good end to the day and the AKDH hiking project.

Let's go outside on a beautiful autumn day. 🍁The tram took us to the starting point of the Heeresbäckerei. From there, follow the green dot, then up the stairs to a table mountain... Nothing further than an old dump, but a great view of the entire city of Dresden and a view of Saxon Switzerland. Continue to Halde 1, always within sight of the JVA... There were plenty of benches to linger. The heaps were created by rubble being transported by numerous trucks after World War II. Today, numerous flowers and grasses bloom in spring and summer. We continued to the information board about the flora and fauna of the Heller. From there we continued, following the yellow line to a memorial stone. The place was immediately used for a short break. The path now continued with the red dot to the market square of the garden city of Hellerau. There is a bit of village flair here. We continued through the Prießnitzgrund back to the tram stop Stauffenbergallee.