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August 2014 |
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Good Health: Discovering Frankfurt’s ‘Green Belt’
Frankfurt, home to countless high-rises and historical buildings, is also a very green city. Exploring its lush green belt is particularly pleasurable during the balmy days of autumn, when the leaves are beginning to turn. Amazingly, this band of green makes up a third of the urban area, amounting to approximately 80 square kilometres. A 62-km-long hiking trail and a 75-km-long cycling track combine to draw a green circle around the core of the city. The track takes hikers and cyclists past various attractions as the Lohrberg, Frankfurt’s only vineyard (pictured left), or the Alter Flugplatz Bonames, a former airport now transformed into a recreational area.
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Good Health: Delightful cycling along the Ilm in Weimar
Among the many things that make Weimar such a delight, the park on the Ilm river
is a stand-out feature, beloved by locals and visitors alike. If you’re in urgent need of de-stressing, it’s the place to be. It’s also one of the main features of the Ilm Valley Cycle Route, which doubles as a tour through Germany’s cultural history and enchanting nature. The Weimar stretch through the park takes cyclists past Goethe’s garden house, to 18th century Tiefurt Park and Mansion or the unique German Bees Museum. Short and easy rides are perfect for combining gentle exercise with sightseeing and sampling local culinary specialities in the many restaurants along the way. In other words: it's delightful.
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Good Health: A taste of nature’s best in Baiersbronn
Baiersbronn
in the Black Forest is a paradise for hikers and foodies. On top of 'Baiersbronn Hiking Heaven', a network of trails featuring serviced hiking huts and traditional Black Forest inns providing food and drink, comes the newly launched
Culinary Hiking Heaven. A number of offers provide tourists with a toolkit to explore Baiersbronn’s unspoilt nature with all their senses. One of the highlights is a selection of restaurants, so-called 'wild plants hosts', which use forest ingredients in their menus. They also provide picnic rucksacks with regional specialities. Or, for anyone keen to walk, eat and learn, there are 'wild plant guides' who take hikers out and introduce them to nature’s treasures.
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Good Health: Kick back and relax with Kuhnle-Tours
A houseboat is synonymous with good health. Taking things slowly, out in the fresh air, swimming, cycling or just lazing on board. Mama steers, papa tries fishing, grandma looks up the local museums. It is all about deceleration. In Germany, the land of the carmaker, there is a saying ‘Schalte doch mal einen Gang zurück!’ – drop down a gear! For all this, you need a reliable partner. Is your boat ready? Of course! Is it clean? Naturally! Is the safety equipment complete? Certainly! What about when something happens? There's company backup 24 hours a day. All the usual clichés that you associate with the Germans apply to
Kuhnle-Tours, who have boating bases in the lake districts of Mecklenburg, Brandenburg and even in Berlin.
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Good Health: Dining fresh and al fresco in Regensburg
Fresh, local food in a spectacular open-air setting, in a formula unchanged for hundreds of years? It must be Regensburg’s historic Sausage Kitchen (Wurstkuchl) on the southern bank of the Danube. Today, just as hundreds of years ago, the Regensburger sausages served here are produced in the Kitchen’s own butchery to an ancient recipe, as are the sauerkraut and mustard. And there are fresh, regional and seasonal specialties al fresco on the northern bank of the Danube too. A home-brewed beer in the beautiful Spital beer garden in Stadtamhof with picture-postcard views across the water to the historic centre – all part of the atmosphere
of this unique UNESCO World Heritage city.
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Good Health: Leipzig bike tours and a lakeside sauna
Leipzig is an ideal city for bike touring, with many of its key sights accessible through green spaces and residential areas. Cycle specialist Lipzi Tours
have several themed itineraries, usually around three hours in duration, ranging from music to art to waterways, including one which ends up at Lake Cospuden, in the city’s southern suburbs. Here there’s a big new lakeside sauna, where you can get up a good sweat in the indoor steam room, and then plunge straight into the crystal clear waters. Also available are massages, refreshments and (in winter) an open fire.
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Good Health: Spas and fine food in the Best of SouthWest
The spa at the Brenners Park-Hotel (pictured) is typical of a new collection of nine hotels the ‘Best of SouthWest Germany’. These are family-run properties, each with its own tale to tell, and each in its own distinctive setting. The Traube Tonbach, the Bareiss and the Dollenberg, began as simple inns in the beautiful Black Forest, and now all have Michelin-starred chefs. Then, there are the city hotels, the Brenners Park in the spa town Baden-Baden; the Colombi in ultra green Freiburg; the Erbprinz in well preserved Ettlingen; and the Europäische Hof in Heidelberg. Then there’s the Riva, with its glorious views over Lake Constance, and the Wald-
& Schlosshotel Friedrichsruhe, which has the charm of a fine country house. All share the same aim: to provide each guest with a special experience.
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Copyright Images
Masthead left to right, T top, B bottom: Black Forest gone blue, Achim Mende. Brandenburger Hof hotel. Schloss Lübbenau (T). Bundesliga, GNTB (B). Ski lift at Fichtelberg, Oberwiesenthal Tourism (T). Martin Luther (B). Chilled gnome, DZT (T). Rügen cliffs, GNTB (B). Cherry cake, pa (B). Berlin S-Bahn
Main images: Tourismus+Congress GmbH Frankfurt am Main; Ralph Kallenbach (Weimar); Baiersbronn Touristik; Regensburg Tourismus GmbH; TMGS/ www.sachsen-tourismus.de (Leipzig)
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