[Mecklenburg-Vorpommern] [Rostock Heath] [Interactive Map] [German]
The Rostock Heath – Great Tour through the Heath
Route: Mueritz - Hirschburg - Jagdschloss Gelbensande - Koehlerhof Wiethagen - Beckerstein - Hinrichshagen - Krausestein - Graal
Total length: about 32 km
Rostock Heath The "Heidetour" (tour through the heath) opens up the characteristic landscape pictures of the largest expansion of coastal forest in Germany (12.00 hectares), a former ducal residence of the Grand-Dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and, in the forest museum, the last tar smouldering works in working order in Central and Western Europe.
In the municipality of Mueritz the journey passes sailors’ houses, former small farms built after the Napoleonic Wars for soldiers returning from the battlefields.

Reaching the end of the row of houses, you can see the "Tannenhof". Founded in 1879/80 as a children’s sanatorium called Friedrich-Franz Hospiz, it embodies the beginning of the children’s healing institutions on the Baltic Sea. Even before we get right to the "Tannenhof", the way leads us further south into the forest and we are accompanied by a continuous change in the aspect of forest landscape.

 Rostock Heath
We pass Hirschberg and after a few kilometres we reach the castle hill at the Wallbach brook, also called "Stoertebeker-mountain".
In the 13th century, a Danish castle garrison guarded the Hanseatic coastal trade route to Danzig and Novgorod, passing by this place, but nearly forgotten today. The Gelbensand hunting lodge, the former summer residence of the Grand Dukes of Mecklenburg, invites you for four days per week to take a rest (Tuesday 14-17, Thursday 9-13, Saturday and Sunday 14-17 or with prior arrangement, phone 038201475). After that, we cross the ancient centre of Gelbensande and pass the former Grand Ducal Forest Inspection built in the type of a manor house.
The Gelbensande Hunting Lodge The Gelbensande Hunting Lodge The Gelbensande Hunting Lodge
We also pass the forest church, situated on the outskirts of the place. And soon, we cross the border between the former Ducal Forest and the city forest of Rostock. After we have passed the ruins of an old Nazi-times concentration camp, we soon get to the Forst-und Koehlerhof Wiethagen museum with its tar ovens still in working order which is under conservation order as a historical technical document.
The Wiethagen Forest and Charcoal Burning Lodge The Wiethagen Forest and Charcoal Burning Lodge The Wiethagen Forest and Charcoal Burning Lodge
After we passed through the village of Wiethagen, we come across the memorial stone for Hermann Friedrich Becker, who, as a forest inspector between 1791 and 1848, has given this forest landscape its shape. Alongside the edge of the forest, we get to Hinrichshagen with the beautifully restored "Schinkenkrug" inn, a former forester’s lodge. Towards the North, we now follow the cycle-path along the road towards Graal-Mueritz. "Waldhaus Mueggenburg" a detour to the "Krausestein" is worth doing. Erected at the location of a village destroyed in the middle ages, the stone commemorates the commendable Rostock city archivist and local historian Ludwig Krause. Continuing the way to Graal-Mueritz, at the border of the town we cross the "Stromgraben, a water forming the border between Hanseatic and Ducal possessions, mentioned as early as 1251.