Steinbach a.Wald: Lake, Art and Hiking Trails

Steinbach a.Wald offers plenty of options for water activities, hiking and culture. You can swim and go pedal boating at Ölschnitzsee Lake, and local circular hiking trails offer routes of varying lengths. Art installations and churches round out these offerings, including the art park in Steinbach a.Wald and St. Laurentius Church in the district of Buchbach. This gives you the option of planning your trip around an activity or a cultural destination.

Water at Ölschnitzsee Lake and hiking

You can go pedal boating and swimming at Ölschnitzsee Lake. The lake is up to 270 metres long and 100 metres wide, with an area of 2.1 hectares.

When hiking, you can compare two local circular trails by length. The Roter-Turm-Weg (R 31) is 7 kilometres long, and the Heeresstraßenweg (R 33) is 13 kilometres long; the main starting point for both is in Steinbach a.Wald. The Roter-Turm-Weg is therefore the shorter of the two loops. The long-distance Rennsteig hiking trail also passes through the built-up area of Steinbach a.Wald.

Art and churches

The glass obelisk symbolises the local glassmaking tradition and, at the same time, a commitment to the local environment. The art park in Steinbach a.Wald features 19 unique sculptures made from felled spruce trees. Alongside the glass monument, spruce-wood sculptures offer another distinct art form in the town.

The Catholic branch church of St. John the Baptist in Steinbach is a fortified church protected by a circular wall. St. Laurentius Church, known as the “Cathedral of the Franconian Forest,” is in the district of Buchbach. Knowing which church is in Steinbach and which is in Buchbach helps you distinguish between the two local churches.

Leisure activities and annual events

The leisure and tourism centre includes a forest trail featuring a tree xylophone, a long-jump pit and a barefoot path, as well as an adventure playground for children. Check the centre’s current facilities before your visit.

A shooting festival is held every year in Steinbach a.Wald, attracting numerous visitors from near and far. The exact festival dates can vary; check them when planning your trip if you want your stay to coincide with the festival.

Kronach: the wider regional context

On a broader regional scale, the larger northeastern part of the district of Kronach extends into the Franconian Forest, a hilly, densely wooded low mountain range with many valleys at elevations of around 500 to just over 700 metres. The rest of the district lies in the northern part of the Upper Main Uplands. This area descends southwest from the Franconian Forest to around 300 to 500 metres and features varied terrain with escarpments and terraces. Most of the district of Kronach lies in the catchment area of the Rodach and its tributaries, which flow southwest towards the Upper Main.

The Rennsteig also has to be considered at different geographical scales: it passes through the built-up area of Steinbach a.Wald, while an 18-kilometre section of the Rennsteig of Thuringia and the Franconian Forest runs through the district of Kronach. This places the local route and the district section in context as two geographical scales of the same long-distance hiking trail.

Discover more destinations: Wilhelmsthal, Teuschnitz, Mitwitz, Weißenbrunn, Steinwiesen, Marktrodach, Küps, Tschirn

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