Discover Surwold

Surwold offers several specific starting points for a stay: the Fairy-Tale Forest, a section of the Coastal Canal Cycle Route, and the main starting point of the Hümmling Dunes Tour. Alongside a cultural experience, this means there are different ways to plan a route. The wider Emsland travel destination offers additional nature and cultural themes.

Fairy-Tale Forest, cycle route and recreation area in Surwold

The Fairy-Tale Forest presents 13 well-known German fairy tales, which you can see and hear at the push of a button. Presentation details may change. Nine kilometres of the Coastal Canal Cycle Route run through Surwold; its route may change. The Hümmling Dunes Tour has its main starting point in Surwold. For orientation, the distinction is useful: a section of the Coastal Canal Cycle Route is specified as passing through the town, while the dunes tour’s starting point is specified. Surwold’s forest is a 34-hectare recreation area.

Nature trails in the wider Emsland travel destination

In the wider Emsland travel destination, Hümmling Nature Park covers around 580 square kilometres in the northeastern part of Emsland district. Cycling and hiking trails, with accompanying information stations, pass historic sites, megalithic tombs and Clemenswerth Castle. The Theikenmeer Loop is one of the nature park’s trails that meet the quality criteria of the German Hiking Association. Such classifications may change.

The Crane Trail offers a specific walking route: it leads about 2.5 kilometres into Theikenmeer Nature Reserve, with the return journey along the same route. This makes for a total walking distance of about five kilometres. Along the trail, there is a viewing platform with panoramic views of Lake Theikenmeer and the Wehmer Dose moorland, as well as an observation hut on the lakeshore. The details about the distance and return route help you assess the length of this tour.

Routes and cultural attractions in the Emsland region

The Emsland Route is a 395-kilometre circular route through five landscape areas: Northern Ems Valley, Hümmling, Bourtanger Moor, Hasetal and Southern Emsland. It is very well signposted, mostly flat, paved and traffic-free, and is particularly suitable for beginners and families with children. The route connects 19 towns; any town in Emsland along the route can serve as a starting or finishing point. This regional scale is quite different from that of the Crane Trail, with its walking distance of about five kilometres.

The cultural attractions in the wider Emsland travel destination also offer different perspectives. The park at Clemenswerth Castle covers 42 hectares and includes the Gloriette, the garden pavilion of Elector Clemens August. Kreutzmann’s Mill in Werlte was restored to its original 1881 condition in the 1990s. For a view of the landscape, the Fehndorfer Moor viewpoint overlooks a 29-hectare remnant of a former industrial peat extraction site, which has been prepared for nature conservation and raised-bog regeneration.

Discover more destinations: Niederlangen, Herzlake, Haselünne, Papenburg, Vrees, Lathen, Stavern, Lähden.

Return to the wider travel overview: Emsland.