FAZ

They all passed through here. The High Road ran right through the Rhine-Main region, a route traversed for millennia by entire peoples and armies, pilgrims, merchants, and crowned heads, earning this long-distance route, which later connected Western and Eastern Europe, the nickname Via Regia. Even Napoleon

The Spessart region boasts many things that delight a hiker's heart: dense forests, tranquil valleys, and pristine waterways. Only one thing is missing – striking peaks offering unobstructed views. The situation is better only on the northwestern periphery, where the panorama opens up to the Rhine-Main

Steep cliffs rising amidst densely vegetated lakes – at first glance, the landscape between Mühlheim and Hanau-Steinheim appears like a relic of a bygone era. Yet, just 45 years ago, it looked completely different: Barren rock faces above a bone-dry bedrock stood at the end of more than a century of

There is no shortage of long-distance hiking trails with regional or thematic focuses, often bearing the "Steig" (Seven Hills) designation. Would anyone have thought that Darmstadt, on the edge of the Rhine-Main Plain, would boast such an exclusive route? In any case, the ambition couldn't have been

The green belt holds. Despite all the encroaching development, the "green belt," established 35 years ago by Frankfurt's city council, fulfills its purpose of protecting a good third, or 8,000 hectares, of the Main metropolis from construction. Visibly and symbolically, it is encircled by a 65-kilometer

Instead of dense forests, the Taunus mountains presented a barren, stony landscape well into the 19th century, while lower elevations served as pastureland. The prehistoric ringforts on the Altkönig and Hünerberg mountains must still be visible from afar, perched atop their summits like crowns. The latter

The Odenwald and Spessart are considered two separate mountain ranges, although geologically they form a single unit. Sandstone forms their common base, up to 500 meters thick, which was only later divided into two blocks by the Main River's erosive action. Only in the western Odenwald did the sediments

Even in the densely populated Rhine-Main region, there are still isolated areas that have preserved a touch of primeval nature or were protected in time to ensure this remains the case in sensitive zones. The Bulau, east of Hanau, is one such area, whose 600 hectares of sandy, marshy subsoil made agriculture

The church in Sulzbach am Main, not far from Aschaffenburg, boasts an exceptional architectural style – a portico of Doric columns with a sandstone tympanum and an attic adorned with figures, reminiscent of classical Greek architecture. This Neoclassical portal of St. Margaret and St. Anne, completed