• Trips

    Saalfeld Fairy Grottoes

    During the bridging days between Christmas and New Year, it was once again time to make a few small excursions. In addition to visiting relatives and ice skating, we also wanted to go to a new place we hadn’t been to before: the Fairy Grottoes in Saalfeld. We had already been to the Dragon’s Cave in Syrau, the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland, or the Turda Salt Mine in Romania – now we wanted to visit this nearby mine, although “near” is relative here. By car, it would have been about an hour’s drive to the south, but we traveled by train and bus via Jena Göschwitz, so the journey…

  • Trips

    Hike to Ettersburg Castle

    On Sunday the weather was just perfect. With 25°C it felt like a beautiful summer day without being overwhelmed by the heat. We took advantage of this to hike to Ettersburg Castle. Since the way from our front door to the castle is quite long with almost 10km, we split up for the first kilometres. I walked the first part while Kevin went a little later and took the bus. Our meeting point was Weimar Schöndorf. The way to Schöndorf is mostly along a main road. Nevertheless, there is the Buchenwald railroad memorial path. Along this path prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp had to build a railroad line under…

  • Trips

    To the Wildcat Village in Hütscheroda

    The weather in August and September was not the very best. It was often cloudy and rainy… but for my birthday we wanted to make a little trip. In August we went with Nathalie’s parents to the treetop path in Thuringia and got an advertising flyer for further sights in Thuringia… and one sight caught our attention: the wildcat village in Hütscheroda! On Saturday we decided to drive to the forest cat village. But we had to realize that it was not so easy to get there without a car. First you have to take the train to Eisenach and from there there is a bus to Hütscheroda and back…

  • Trips

    Hike on the Horseshoe in Jena

    From the meeting point in Jena Zwätzen we first had to go to Kunitz. Here we crossed the Kunitz house bridge and got to know the village a little bit. Soon we were on the signposted hiking trail and we headed south up the mountain towards Jenzig. Here we got lost 1 or 2 times. So we came partly on quite steep paths, which sometimes even ended in dead ends. But with the time the paths became more and more passable and we even met a paraglider pilot at his jump. Arrived at the summit there were several forest taverns where we had our lunch. Nathalie and I made onigiri…