Discover Neustadt am Rennsteig
Accommodation in Neustadt Am Rennsteig
Neustadt am Rennsteig combines panoramic views across the Thuringian Forest with the Rennsteig, which runs right through the town. The town’s history also offers concrete points of interest for a trip, from former occupations to the historic role of the high-altitude trail as a border. When planning your trip, you can decide whether to focus primarily on the landscape and hiking trails or on the town’s historical traces.
Gemeindezentrum und Rennsteigmuseum in Neustadt am Rennsteig
Photo: Störfix via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Forest panoramas and the Rennsteig
Neustadt am Rennsteig offers panoramic views across the vastness of the Thuringian Forest. The town lies in the southeastern part of Thuringian Forest Nature Park. Together, these features provide a clear sense of the landscape: the panorama draws your gaze across the expanse of the forest, while the town’s location in the nature park gives it a geographic context.
The Rennsteig high-altitude trail runs right through Neustadt am Rennsteig. In addition, a well-marked network of hiking trails leads from the town into the surrounding side valleys. This gives you two distinct options for planning your day: the route of the renowned high-altitude trail through the town and the trails leading from there into the side valleys. Conditions on individual trails may change, so it is a good idea to check for updates before setting out on a hike.
Local history and the former border
Neustadt am Rennsteig is more than 530 years old. Former occupations in the town included charcoal burning, pitch boiling, glassmaking, beating out tinder fungus, and making matches. These different occupations give the town’s history several concrete facets rather than reducing it to a single tradition.
The Rennsteig also had a historic function here: until 1923, it also ran along the border between the Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen and the Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen in Neustadt am Rennsteig. The high-altitude trail is therefore not only a distinctive point of reference for planning a trip, but also part of the town’s documented border history.
Großbreitenbach as a distinct regional context
Within the broader travel destination of Großbreitenbach, the town of the same name extends across a plateau between the Langer Berg, the Schwarza Valley and the Rennsteig high-altitude hiking trail. Großbreitenbach is a state-recognized health resort and lies around 50 kilometers south of Erfurt and about 15 kilometers southeast of Ilmenau. This description of the landscape and location refers to Großbreitenbach.
A special cultural attraction in Großbreitenbach is St. Trinitatis Church. With 600 seats, it is the largest half-timbered church in Thuringia. It was built from 1679 onward to replace the dilapidated St. John’s Church, which had been built in 1570 and collapsed in 1771, leaving only its church tower. Andreas Rudolphi, a state master builder from Saxe-Gotha, supplied the building plans. The church was consecrated in 1690.
The church’s architectural form also tells its own story: it is entirely clad in slate. A striking hexagonal roof turret sits atop the steep roof of the wide nave. The wooden baptismal stand dates from 1677 and was transferred from the old St. John’s Church. In Großbreitenbach, architecture, building history and a preserved furnishing thus come together as a distinct cultural highlight within the broader travel destination.
Discover more destinations: Geschwenda, Gehlberg, Ichtershausen, Herschdorf, Plaue, Geraberg, Bücheloh, Elxleben
Go to the broader travel overview: Ilm District.
