Staycation: Stone Hike

Welcoming the month. of November with a post, about welcoming the month of August with a hike.
The numbers were at their lowest, so it was time for traveling. Short distances of course.
Cheap travel options were still available, we decided for BlaBlaBus. Early morning on a 3 hours ride to Dresden, and then a short train ride to Kurort Rathen.

And then a long way on foot.

My wish was to revisit the Bastei Bridge, but when it comes to hiking paths usually it is not me who is deciding.

We were hiking along the Elbe River passing through the woods of Weissig village, aiming to reach the “Malerweg“, or translated in english the “Painter Path”.

Malerweg – is the main hiking trail in the Elbe Sandstone region. It got its name because many painters made romantic views of the rocks in the past centuries. The path is 112km long and it is split in 8 routes.

Our route was our creation, mix of a few, but now paying more attention than then, it was mostly route number 2, 6 and 7. A DIY route.

From Weissig, our route continues on the way to Thürmsdorf, leading us to the Thürmsdorf castle, and a quick stop in the Adoratio Chocolate garden. Maybe an early stop but it was bugging us to visit it all the way. Next we are on our route to Königstein, where we wanted to see the Königsstein Fortress.

Königstein Fortress (King’s Rock) – one of the highest fortresses in Europe. The oldest records about the fortress date from 1233 year, at that time it belonged to the Bohemian Kingdom.

The Fortress was impressive, one of the more beautiful that I have seen, of course the views from it were taking the breath away. It is Painters path after all. Due to safety reasons we avoided entering inside, but when another opportunity pops up we will not miss it. The entrance for adults was 12 euros.

Further steps lead us to Königstein town, and a supermarket stop, where we discovered the most delicious mint smoothie. We also discovered that you can never have too much water with you, especially when the temperature is around 30 degrees. I do not know whether it was the special timing that we passed by, but i was wondering where are the tourists in this town. It was empty.

What was the hardest part for me was the up hill road between Königstein and Pfaffendorf, but the views on the fortress were compensating the pain. And the view from one of the checkpoints – The view point of the Gohrisch Pavillion even more. Reaching to the top was a very interesting experience, through tiny stone paths, and inner feeling was like passing by through a canyon.

The next even more rewarding stone was the Papsttein restaurant – Berggast (Mountain Guest), and traditional egg cake. Also traditionally amazing view. And traditional question, how much more? No one gave me that answer.

It was also the moment when I realized that Bastei Bridge is not happening. But I didn’t feel sorry, especially not after passing by a group of deers, softly chilling in the shadows of the wild park.

And for the end we passed through the Kleinhennersdorf village, got lost in the woods, but managed to arrive in time to the train station in Bad Schandau. Arriving here. and seeing the trains from Czech Republic I realized that we are only 10km far from the border, and I finally realized why there were so many Czech tourist in the region. We also realized that there was a direct train from Berlin, but what would a cheap trill be without a little hassle.