Laubach: Half-timbered Houses, Castle History and Trails
Accommodation in Laubach
Laubach combines a historic half-timbered old town with castle history and trails through parkland and forest. With exhibitions on the town’s history, a poetry trail and longer routes, it’s easy to choose what to do for the day: you can combine culture and exercise or focus on individual experiences.
Half-timbered Houses, Castle and Town History
Basalt-paved streets and half-timbered houses up to 500 years old define Laubach’s old town. The 600-year-old castle of the Counts of Solms-Laubach is also part of its historic character. At the castle museum, you can see painted late Gothic rooms from the 15th century, as well as objects and stories spanning five centuries.
The Museum Fridericianum building also has a story of its own: it was built around 1750 as a hunting lodge for Count Christian August in Gonterskirchen and moved to its present location in Laubach in 1832. The museum covers Laubach’s history through the 20th century, including the history of the count’s family, the townspeople and the rural population. If you’re interested in how the town and its different population groups developed, you’ll find a different perspective here than in the castle rooms.
The Protestant Town Church was first mentioned in 1057. Its architecture combines a late Romanesque–early Gothic tower, choir and transept with a Baroque nave built between 1700 and 1702. The castle library is a private collection assembled by the Counts of Solms-Laubach over more than 450 years. It comprises around 120,000 works and is a reference library.
The Dollhouse Museum offers another distinctive glimpse of historic domestic life: its two floors display around 80 dollhouses from the Art Nouveau, Gründerzeit and Biedermeier periods. The different periods give the collection a clear chronological framework.
Walks Between the Castle Park and the Forest
Laubach Castle Park was laid out in the English landscape garden style in the late 19th century. Its grounds include imposing, and in some cases rare, coniferous and deciduous trees. If you’d like to get outdoors and discover poetry along the way, try the “Poetry by the Wayside – Paths to Poetry” trail. It leads through the castle park and over Ramsberg; 23 poems are displayed along the route. The walk is listed as taking around 1.5 hours. It is considered easy, but includes an ascent of Ramsberg.
For a longer walk, try the panoramic trail around the central part of Laubach. It is 9 kilometers long and can be extended to 11.5 kilometers. The Horloff Valley Loop offers a different landscape, passing through dense Laubach forest and following the river. Halfway along, you can cross the river at a ford or via the Sebastian Kneipp footbridge. The routes mainly differ in whether you’d prefer to explore the town center, the landscaped park or the forest.
By Bike or by the Water
The SolmserLand Cycling Tour links the residential towns of Lich, Laubach and Hungen and is 41 kilometers long. Another described cycling route runs from Hungen to Laubach along an old railway embankment through woods and meadows. In Laubach, visitors are advised to explore the castle park on foot. This lets you combine the cycling route with a walk without treating the two as the same mode of travel.
The swimming pools also offer different pools and areas. The indoor pool has a 25-meter pool with five lanes and starting blocks, three underwater massage jets, and a waterfall shower in the non-swimmer area. There is also a small children’s slide and loungers. The outdoor pool has an L-shaped 50-meter pool with a diving area, one- and three-meter diving boards, a waterfall shower and a small water slide in the non-swimmer area. A separate paddling pool with a climbing rock completes the facilities.
Choose Laubach for Your Holiday
When looking for a holiday apartment in Laubach, consider what you’d like to shape your stay: the historic old town and its museums, walks or cycling routes, or time at one of the swimming pools. The routes mentioned range from a walk of around 1.5 hours to longer trails; specific distances are provided for the panoramic trail and the SolmserLand Cycling Tour. Laubach can be reached by road from the A5 via the Homberg/Ohm and Fernwald exits, and from the A45 via Münzenberg and Wölfersheim.
More town pages to help you plan: Gießen, Heuchelheim, Staufenberg, Langgöns, Wettenberg, Biebertal, Rabenau.
Back to the main travel guide: Gießen.
