The Elbe Valley 2012 – Walking Trails
Malerweg, Weinwanderweg
Malerweg
The local tourist board markets this part of Germany as “Saxon Switzerland” (“Sächsische Schweiz”). It’s like Switzerland to the same extent that Crawley is like Prague. But it does have a unique landscape of towering sandstone bluffs and crags and is popular with walkers and rock climbers as well as the German romantic artists who allegedly walked through the region with their easels, palettes and brushes.
The 112km Malerweg claims to be “the most scenic and loved walking path in Germany”. The ‘official’ version follows a roughly circular route starting at Liebethal, north of Pirna, heading generally south-east and keeping mostly away from the Elbe until it crosses the river near Schmilka and heads back downstream to finish at Pirna (see map). The path can be steep where it climbs up and down the various sandstone outcrops but steps or even iron staircases have been installed to make the going easier.
Weinwanderweg
The Sächsische Weinwanderweg was devised in the late 1990s but not officially opened until 2006. Like all such routes it was intended to encourage tourism and publicise the region’s wines. The trouble is that although wine has been produced in the area for at least 450 years many of the vineyards have been lost to expansion of the towns and villages along the river Elbe. Instead of taking walkers through vineyards the route mostly takes them through suburbs. On tarmac roads. “Here on the left”, says the guidebook, “is a fine house that once belonged to a renowned winemaker”. Further along, “The houses on the right are on the site of a vineyard which ceased production in 1934”.
So we found ourselves following roads and from time to time turning uphill, walking along a higher parallel road or track and then returning downhill to the road we had left half a mile earlier. We had walked round a vineyard which no longer existed. ‘Up-along-down’ became a familiar pattern.