Award-winning hiking

Using historic documents, the Malerweg Trail in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains was adapted to modern-time hiker’s quality requirements and then reconstructed and remarked in 2006. Just one year later, it was elected as “Germany’s Most Beautiful Hiking Trail” by the Hikers’ Magazine. Another year later, the internet audience award “Germany’s most Popular Hiking Trail” followed. But also various travel reports in the internet and other media, as well as enthusiastic hikers, confirm that the Malerweg is one of the most attractive hiking trails in all of Germany. In 2016, the Globetrotter Magazine’s readers ranked the Malerweg trail to Place 3 of the most popular trips in the world after Patagonia and Iceland.

The Malerweg trail in Saxon Switzerland owes its overwhelming success first of all to the spectacular landscape experience of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains which the trail makes accessible in all its variety. Taking the German Hiking Association’s quality criteria for the coveted distinction “Quality trail in ‘Wander-ful’ Germany” as a consistent standard played an important role, too

The leading German quality system for hiking trails was taken as a standard for the conception of the trail by the Saxon Switzerland Tourist Association. The result is a fully marked varied and scenic hiking trail with only minimal stretches along streets or roads.