Tour 1: Ilm valley cycle path between Rennsteig and Saale
The Ilm Valley Cycle Route between Rennsteig and Saale is Thuringia's most popular cycle route. The mostly tarmac route runs alongside the River Ilm from the UNESCO Thuringian Forest Biosphere Reserve to where it flows into the Saale. You could easily complete the 123 kilometres in two days, but the nature and culture along the ADFC's four-star quality cycle route demand extra effort.
Tour 2: Thuringian Slate Mountains Ponds and reservoirs
From Pößneck, the route runs through the Thuringian Slate Mountains, past ponds and reservoirs. In the Orlasenke it gets quiet and sporty. After all, almost 80 kilometres of mainly asphalted roads and 1,450 metres in altitude await touring cyclists. Too much for a day tour? Then how about an overnight stay, for example in idyllic Ziegenrück, the fifth smallest town in Germany with just 700 inhabitants. The train takes exactly one hour from Weimar to Pößneck. And then it's straight into the saddle at the railway station. The first stop is Ranis Castle on a hill in the town of the same name. Speaking of hills: as I said, the entire route is characterised by a brisk up and down.
Tour 3: Discover the garden houses of the poet princes by bike
Germany's most famous poets liked to spend their time in the Thuringian Basin. Johann Wolfgang Goethe is well known for this, but Friedrich Schiller also maintained a summer residence in Jena from 1797 to 1799 in addition to his rented flats. This cycle tour takes you to the houses of Goethe and Schiller in Weimar and Jena.
The 25-kilometre garden house route starts at the train station in Weimar and leads directly to the park on the Ilm. Goethe purchased the garden house and garden there in April 1776, a few months after his arrival in Weimar. The domicile was his home and workplace for six years. The lower garden served as his retreat for fifty years.
Tour 4: From Weimar to Erfurt - city hopping on a touring bike
This cycle tour in Thuringia leads from Weimar to Erfurt as a small city comparison. It runs for almost 30 kilometres along the Thuringian chain of towns.
With its UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Weimar is an absolute heavyweight when it comes to German culture and architecture. The World Heritage inscription "Bauhaus and its sites in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau" includes three properties in Weimar, and the "Classical Weimar" inscription even includes 16 properties. You should plan enough time to cycle round all of them. But the Thuringian state capital 30 kilometres further west is not a place without culture either. In Erfurt, in addition to the cathedral, the Petersberg Citadel, the Krämerbrücke bridge, the Old Synagogue, the Augustinian monastery and the Ega Park are also worth seeing.
Tour 5: BUGA grounds and bathing lakes
From Erfurt's fish market to the north and east of the city
We start in the city centre and follow the banks of the Gera and the signs for the Gera cycle path. The relatively flat, 44 km long route leads across the large BUGA site (Federal Garden Show 2021 in Erfurt) to Gispersleben and on to Kühnhausen. At Elxleben, we leave the Gera Valley heading east. Several renaturalised quarry ponds invite you to take a break on the shore, especially in summer. Lake Alperstedter See is also a nice resting place a little later on. Between Stotternheimer See and Klingesee, where there are several bathing beaches, we approach the Lutherstein, where the reformer was caught in a storm in July 1505.
Tour 6: The Steigerwald and the south-east
From the Erfurt fish market to the forest and villages
The sporty 40-kilometre route starts in the centre of Erfurt and leads clockwise on cycle paths, field paths and forest tracks through the south-east of the Thuringian capital. It starts with a cross-section of city culture - from the historic buildings at the fish market to prefabricated buildings from the GDR era and typical allotments. We then ride across wide fields with views of the Steigerwald forest. A tip for non e-bikers! There are 200 metres of ascent here. The name Steigerwald comes from "climb".
Tour 7: Feininger Cycle Route - In the footsteps of the Bauhaus artist
The Feininger route takes you 30 kilometres through the south of Weimar.
Lyonel Feininger, a German-American painter, graphic artist and caricaturist, is one of the most important artists of classical modernism. Walter Gropius appointed Feininger to the Bauhaus University in Weimar on Geschwister-Scholl-Straße in 1919. This is exactly where the cycle route begins. The route continues to Bauhausstraße 7a, where his first studio was located. The next stop is house no. 16 in Gutenbergstraße. Lyonel Feininger lived here with his family from 1919 to 1926.
GPS data for the 7 cycle routes in Thuringia
You can download the GPX tracks for the Thuringia tour planner free of charge below the article or find them in the MYBIKE Collection on komoot.
You can find the complete holiday planner for Thuringia with all the information in MYBIKE 2/2021 or as a PDF download below the article. The PDF costs 1.99 euros.
