Happiness is when you’re on the road – and especially on this route. Whether by car, caravan, motorcycle or bicycle – on the German Wine Route you can enjoy the picturesque scenery with rolling vineyards, almond tree avenues, enchanting villages, castles, ruins and splendid forests at your own pace. As one of Germany’s oldest holiday routes, it’s a goldmine for tourists, gourmets and explorers.
Whether you start off in the south from Schweigen-Rechtenbach at the Deutsches Weintor (German Wine Gate) or from the northern end in Bockenheim, you’ll always be travelling on the sunny side. With more than 1,800 hours of sunshine, it is blessed with a Mediterranean climate. Even figs, kiwi fruit and lemons thrive here. The people of the Palatinate have a particularly sunny outlook, something you’ll soon notice when you make a stop at any of the numerous restaurants, pubs and wine bars. It’s certainly worth leaving your car parked and discovering the variety of the region on the separate German Wine Route cycling or hiking trail. There are more than enough excursion destinations, such as Hambach Castle known as the cradle of German democracy, the Wachtenburg ruined castle, the Villa Ludwigshöhe, the Landau Zoo, the Südpfalz-Draisine sports complex, the Rietburg chairlift … And if you want to relax after all that, you can do so in the spa town of Bad Bergzabern or in Bad Dürkheim, where you can enjoy a glass of the local drop next to the world’s largest wine barrel with a capacity of 1.7 million litres. Or you might prefer Bad Dürkheim’s Wurstmarkt (sausage market), the world’s largest wine festival that welcomes around 685,000 visitors each year.
View over the wine landscape, Palatinate
The German Wine Route Adventure Day always takes place on the last Sunday in August. The road is then closed to motor vehicles for eight hours. You can look forward to a cultural programme, plenty of locally produced wine and other tasty titbits along the route. The event is popular with up to 300,000 cyclists and inline skaters.
Hardenburg ruined castle, Limburg Monastery, St Martin (picturesque village), Deidesheim wine village, Edenkoben (wine, forest, culture), Neustadt an der Weinstrasse.
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