Clingen: Mills, City Wall and Börnchen

Clingen offers several ways to shape your stay: its history of milling, surviving sections of the town fortifications, the Börnchen and the Kleine Wartburg animal park. If you are looking for a hotel in Clingen, you can plan your trip around whether you want to focus on the town itself or also include other destinations in the broader Kyffhäuserkreis travel region.

Mills and historic buildings

Clingen once had five mills: the Pfaffenhof Mill, the Neumühle, the Ölmühle, the Papiermühle and the Pulvermühle. The Pulvermühle is a particularly clear example of how a name reflects a mill’s function: it was later called the Neue Ölmühle, operated as an oil and grist mill, and supplied electricity for Clingen’s lighting for many years from 1922 onward. This example highlights both the changing name and the town’s former electricity supply.

A surviving section of the old town wall includes a small tower near the church with two embrasures. The Domänenhof is at least partly the main building of the castle; inscriptions attest to the age of its lower section. The monument to the “Loreley” men’s singing club adds its own distinctive feature: it stands in the forecourt and is a replica of the Loreley rock.

Börnchen, nature reserve and animal park

At the Börnchen, the focus is on the water and its surroundings: a spring bubbles into a pond edged with tufa stones, with a bench nearby. The water from the Börnchen flows into a man-made biotope. The spring, pond and biotope offer a different focus from the mills and historic buildings.

Visitors can feed the animals at the Kleine Wartburg animal park in Clingen. If you plan to include this experience, check the current operating status before your visit. Access is an important consideration for the Gerinne: it is a damaged aqueduct and can only be reached from the sports ground. As its condition may change, check the situation before your visit.

More destinations in the broader Kyffhäuserkreis travel region

As an additional regional option, the broader Kyffhäuserkreis travel region offers other distinct destinations. The Barbarossa Cave is an anhydrite cave between the districts of Rottleben and Steinthaleben in the municipality of Kyffhäuserland. Five miners discovered it in 1865 in connection with the resumption of copper shale mining. It was named after the legend of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, who is said to return one day.

The Sondershausen Adventure Mine offers guided tours year-round at a depth of 670 metres, including an approximately two-hour truck tour through the underground labyrinth. The mine is also home to the world’s deepest concert hall, where concerts and cabaret performances are held regularly. The Wiehe Model Railway is a model railway exhibition open year-round, covering an area of 12,000 square metres. Since 1923, the Sondershausen Palace Museum has been housed in the former residence of the Counts and Princes of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen and displays a varied exhibition across three floors.

The routes can be compared by length and layout: the Kyffhäuser Trail is a 37-kilometre circular route starting and ending in Bad Frankenhausen. Its three stages lead from Bad Frankenhausen to the Barbarossa Cave, onwards to the Kyffhäuser Monument and back to Bad Frankenhausen. The trail is certified as a Quality Trail by Wanderbares Deutschland, is well signposted and is regularly checked for defects. The Forest Adventure Trail runs for four kilometres between the Rothenburg castle ruins and the Kyffhäuser Monument and features ten activity stations.

Discover more destinations: Greußen, Oberheldrungen, Roßleben, Heldrungen, Westgreußen, Gorsleben, Kyffhäuserland, Artern/Unstrut.

For the broader travel overview: Kyffhäuserkreis.