Google-Maps Spessart - Main Odenwald

Spessart – Main Odenwald

Left of the Main River it goes by the name of Odenwald, on the right side, it"s known as Spessart: Combined, these two forests form Germany"s largest mixed deciduous woodland. But we won"t be trying to impress you with „natural“ superlatives here; instead we"ll try to point out some subtle highlights of the regional fauna and flora.

The checkered lily, for example. It has become rare – but every spring it blooms in "Sinngrund", turning the Sinn Meadows into a carpet of flowers. When you go to see them, why not say hallo to the beavers and kingfishers, who feel just as at home here as that little flower with its distinctive pattern of bright and dark violet squares.

Or maybe you"d like to meet someone who has actually known the old Spessart bandits in person? Just take a hike to the centuries-old oak trees – too bad trees can"t talk. To make up for it, you"ll find people here more than willing to tell you more about their local nature, the woods, and the „Streuobstwiese“, a meadow with diverse fruit trees. Enjoy these „natural“ superlatives.

The famous story „The Inn in Spessart“ by Wilhelm Hauff takes place in the dark forest, where myths and fairy tales were born back in the 19th century, when the region wasn"t as developed as it is today. The Palace of Mespelbrunn was one of the main locations of the feature film of the same name in 1958; the Earl of Ingelheim lives in the fairy tale castle. In the late Fifties, the famous inn disappeared when the freeway A3 was built; in its place today stands a rest stop.

There is virtually no mass tourism in Spessart, it is rather a paradise for nature lovers coming for the calmness of the woods. Hikers and mountain bikers find their perfect routs somewhere within an excellent path network between Lohr am Main and Aschaffenburg. One insider"s tip is the route between Schollbrunn and the Charterhouse Grünau; the former monastery structure includes a restaurant.