Monument in the forest

Visitors to the Waldmünchen Borderland and Trenck Museum learn right at the beginning of the tour that the area around Waldmünchen is located on one of the oldest trade routes in Europe, the so-called "Flint Road", which led from the Abensberg (Arnhofen) area to the Stone Age settlements of the Pilsen and Prague basins. Archaeological finds prove this and remains of flint working can be seen in the permanent exhibition. From 5 July, a new special exhibition will be dedicated to the topic of artefacts that have been hidden in forests and soils for a long time.
The travelling exhibition "DenkMal im Wald! Culture in Nature" provides an in-depth insight into the often hidden world of archaeological artefacts. Many of these monuments have been overgrown by vegetation for centuries or millennia and are now largely located in the forest. The exhibition shows that the forest is not only a natural space, but also a preservation area for important historical relics, for burial mounds from the Bronze Age, for Celtic entrenchments and the Roman Limes, for medieval castle stables or relics of modern industry. The exhibition describes and explains archaeological monuments, illustrates the dangers of these cultural treasures and explains ways of protecting them. A forest diorama vividly demonstrates the possibilities of modern forestry to utilise the forest in a way that protects the soil and to preserve its hidden monuments, of which around 55,000 are known in Bavaria.
The exhibition is a joint project of the Weihenstephan Forest-Forest-Wood Centre, the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and the Association for Sustainability. The project is supported by the Bavarian Forestry Administration. For the Waldmünchen Borderland and Trenck Museum, the exhibition was supplemented by the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments with a region-specific section and enriched with loans from the prehistoric and protohistoric collection of the town of Cham.
The current 2025 hiking programme for the Waldmünchen holiday region offers
several guided hikes to interesting destinations with archaeological monuments, such as the Schratzelloch on the Bleschenberg (7 August) or the "disappeared village" of Höhner, a medieval-early modern deserted settlement near Geigant (10 September).), as well as to the "disappeared" Bohemian Forest village of Grafenried/Lučina in the Czech Republic, formerly populated by Germans, the remains of which were largely uncovered after the fall of the "Iron Curtain" (1 August, 29 August). A local speciality not to be missed is the Waldmünchen Coal Pile Weeks (11 July to 2 August). Every summer since 1995, visitors have been able to experience how forests were once used to produce charcoal on the former charcoal slab in the forests of Waldmünchen. The charring of wood is one of the oldest craft techniques known to mankind. Charcoal was mainly needed for ironworks and hammer mills. Guided hikes to the charcoal burning site take place on 15 July and 17 July.
Find out more at https://www.waldmuenchen.de/touristmus-freizeit-kultur/natur-aktivregion/wandern

Last edited on 14.01.2026