Forest park Bad Elster

Well-liked gem in the forest park Bad Elster:
The historic brandstand at Nature Theatre

Today above all the historic area around the Nature Theatre Bad Elster as well as the highly well-liked forest hiking area on and around the ‘Brunnenberg’ with it` s numerous viewpoints and mountain huts is characterized as forest park Bad Elster. The forest park Bad Elster today becomes increasingly popular to tripper, hiker and families above all because appealing hiking destinations like the bandstand with wooden ornaments, the biggest spruce in Vogtland close beside the enchanting Café-Restaurant “Waldschlösschen”, the historic place of worship “Kreuzkapelle” as well as the numerous preserved mountain huts and viewpoints.

The royal-saxon horticultural inspector Paul Schindel had has the most massive influence on the designing of the forest hiking area. Spearheaded by him the area was essentially valorized and designed from 1911 to 1917. In 1911 today`s Nature Theatre was built as first of his sort. Afterwards numerous new huts, forest paths, benches and stairs were laid out  and the network of rambling trails was expanded. In 1917 the forest park Bad Elster finally had a total area of 200 ha with 20 mountain huts. In order to additionally encourage the guests to hike at this time “coffee parties” were organized at the mountain huts. From 1928 to 1939 some of the paths within the whole forest park were also permitted as bridlepath. Since 1993 separate paths can be used again as bridlepaths.

The forest park is one of the oldest park areas in Bad Elster. Above all in summer the shady areal give a freshening compensation to the comparatively sunny parks in the valley. The walking and hiking along the hillside  on paths on same contour line with alternating relaxing areas of benches, mountain huts or viewpoints makes the visit of the forest park to a special experience.