Discover Heubach: Planet Trail and Observatory

The Planet Trail offers a specific hiking route, and the sports center has two named indoor sports facilities. Masserberg is the trail’s destination and has its own cultural and landscape highlights.

Planet Trail and Observatory in Heubach

The Planet Trail experience path leads from Heubach to Masserberg. The 3.8 km hike can start at the small observatory in Heubach. This gives you a possible starting point, the route length, and the destination for planning. The observatory at the Heubach school retreat and leisure camp opened on May 14, 2009. The trail and observatory give your stay an astronomical connection, but each has a different focus: here, the hiking route takes center stage; there, the history of the site that opened in 2009. The distance helps you fit the route into your day; you can plan how to allocate your time according to your own pace.

Sports Facilities in Heubach

The Heubach Sports Center has a two-court indoor tennis hall with a Grand Prix court and an adjacent squash hall. Tennis and squash are therefore available as specific indoor sports. If you would like to include use of an indoor facility in your plans, check its current availability in advance.

Masserberg: Culture and Landscape at the Destination

Masserberg is the destination of the Planet Trail. The present-day Evangelical Mountain Church of Masserberg was consecrated there on October 9, 1883, after the church that previously stood on the site was destroyed in a fire in 1880. The “Masserberg Christ the King” has been in the Mountain Church since the third Sunday of Advent in 1980. The Greiz sculptor Elly-Viola Nahmmacher carved the artwork from a linden trunk. It is 3 m high and 2.65 m wide. The sequence of the fire that destroyed the former church, the consecration of the present Mountain Church, and the later installation of the artwork illustrates the different chapters of the area’s history.

The landscape around Masserberg also has several clearly identified points of interest. The village lies directly on the Rennsteig and is surrounded by forest meadows and beech and spruce forests. Numerous well-marked hiking trails and the Rennsteig offer opportunities for hikes through the Thuringian Forest Nature Park. For planning excursions, you can use both marked trails and the well-known ridge trail as guides.

At 842 m, the Rennsteigwarte on Eselsberg offers panoramic views across the Thuringian Forest and its foothills. The observation tower was built in 1974. Two wooden predecessor towers had been destroyed: one in 1951 by a storm, the other in 1974 by a lightning strike. These details connect the viewpoint with the history of its predecessor structures and its present form.

Other trails in Masserberg include the barefoot trail created by the tourist association. It runs over natural forest soil, sharp wood chips, wooden tree rounds, and soft moss. On the ridge, you can also hike comfortably in different directions with only gentle changes in elevation, or take a horse-drawn carriage ride. Masserberg therefore offers both a variety of trail surfaces and two different ways to get around.

Discover more destinations: Nahetal-Waldau, Auengrund, Sankt Kilian, Hildburghausen, Bischofrod, Veilsdorf, Ehrenberg, Fehrenbach.

Return to the regional travel overview: Hildburghausen-Suhl.