Greiz: Castle History, Art Nouveau and Hiking Trails
Accommodation in Greiz
Greiz offers different ways to explore history and the surrounding landscape: at the Upper Castle, royal residence architecture meets architectural history exhibitions, while the Greiz Circular Hiking Trail connects several stages and viewpoints. When choosing your holiday apartment, you can first consider whether you want to focus your stay more on culture, hiking or cycling.
Greiz, Thuringia, Germany: View over the Weiße Elster towards Oberes Schloss
Photo: Steffen Löwe via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Castles, Exhibitions and the Townscape
The Upper Castle in Greiz is an authentic example of the architecture of a small-state royal residence. Its permanent and special exhibitions invite visitors to explore architectural history, from the Romanesque period to Art Nouveau. The castle therefore offers more than a single building period: the exhibition themes span different eras, which are also reflected at other sites in Greiz.
At the museum in the Upper Castle, visitors can explore a computer animation of 800 years of building history. There are also opportunities to get involved and try things out: you can put on a knight’s helmet, and a sound chair offers insights into table manners of the time. The animation, helmets and sound chair each offer a different perspective—from the long history of the building to a specific glimpse of historical ways of life.
The museum in the Lower Castle explores other themes, including the “Greiz Textile History” exhibition. The Art Nouveau Quarter is in the town centre, around Marktstraße and Thomasstraße. The Summer Palace, meanwhile, is part of the architectural ensemble of Greiz, which brings together architectural landmarks dating from the 12th to the 19th century. Anyone interested in architectural history will encounter both a single period, such as Art Nouveau, and a broader historical span in Greiz.
Viewpoints, the Circular Hiking Trail and a Cycling Tour
The Gasparine Temple is a special viewpoint. From there, 65 metres above the valley floor, you can see the Upper Castle and Greiz’s old town. The temple is also on Stage 3 of the Greiz Circular Hiking Trail, between Silberloch and Dölau. This means you can also visit this viewpoint as part of a stage of the trail.
The Greiz Circular Hiking Trail is about 70 kilometres long, divided into several stages, and passes sights and viewpoints around the town. If you are planning to hike during your trip, you can take this distance into account when deciding how much of your stay you want to devote to hiking.
A historical costume tour also offers a way to explore the town’s history: it brings the history of Greiz and special events to life at historic sites. A guided tour of Greiz can include the Princely Greiz Park. The town’s wildlife enclosure offers a different perspective on the landscape; it lies within the Greiz-Werdauer Wald landscape conservation area.
For a cycling trip, the “Greiz – Werdauer Wald – Göltzsch Viaduct” tour is another specific option. It is about 35 kilometres long and rated as moderately difficult. The Greiz District Cycling Guide also lists the “Greiz-Werdauer Wald-Göltzsch Viaduct” route as Route 1.6 among the cycling routes in the Greiz region. The hiking trail and cycling tour therefore differ both in activity and in their stated distances. When looking for a holiday apartment in Greiz, you can use your preferred focus—exhibitions and architecture, hiking stages or a cycling tour—as a guide to planning your trip.
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Go to the overarching travel overview: Greiz.
