Kößlarn: Hiking Trails, Rock Garden and Fortified Church

Kößlarn combines marked trails in the Grafenwald hiking area with striking rock formations and a rich cultural history. You can choose different focuses for your trip: walks and longer circular hikes, the Via Nova pilgrimage route, or the fortified church, Silver Madonna and Harvest Festival. This lets you tailor your stay to the experiences that interest you most.

Hiking in the Grafenwald

The Grafenwald hiking area in Kößlarn has an extensive network of marked trails for walks and longer circular hikes. Information boards at the market square and at the car park in the Grafenwald show the exact routes. You can use the routes displayed as a guide when choosing between a walk and a longer circuit.

The Steinerne Rössl lies along the Notzart-Freinberg circular trail: an upright slab of rock whose shape resembles a horse lying down. The rock garden, a natural monument in the Grafenwald hiking area, offers a different natural feature. In the Loher Graben, bizarre boulders line a steep stream channel running downhill. At the Rössl, the single rock slab shapes the scene; in the rock garden, it is the boulders along the descending channel. Different rock formations thus take centre stage in the same hiking area.

The Via Nova pilgrimage route offers another way to include Kößlarn in a longer hike. It runs via Bad Griesbach to Kößlarn, then via Ebertsfelden through the Grafenwald to Münchham, and continues via St. Anna to Ering. While the marked trails in the Grafenwald include walks and circular hikes, the Via Nova describes a route through several named places. When planning your hike, it is advisable to check the current route with the relevant trail information service.

Culture and Festival Traditions

The fortified church in Kößlarn is the only complete complex of its kind in Old Bavaria. The Silver Madonna is considered a unique work of outstanding material and cultural significance in the Diocese of Passau. These two special features offer different points of interest: one is a complete fortified church, the other an artwork of outstanding importance within the diocese.

The Harvest Festival is a recurring occasion for planning a trip around a specific date. This more than 300-year-old tradition takes place every year on the second Sunday in September. If you would like to plan your stay around the festival, this date provides a specific point of reference in the annual calendar. Along with the hiking trails and cultural attractions, it offers another possible focus when choosing your travel dates.

Passau as a wider travel context

The wider travel destination of Passau offers a range of themes that extend beyond Kößlarn. The Passau region is shaped by rivers, forests and thermal baths; well-known thermal springs are located in Bad Füssing and Bad Griesbach. Other hiking trails can also be found there: the Granite Adventure Trail around Hauzenberg and the Smuggler’s Trail in the Danube Pearls. These are regional examples within the wider travel destination of Passau, not features of Kößlarn.

The Bavarian Forest Museum Village in Tittling is a cultural attraction in its own right within the wider travel destination of Passau. It is one of Europe’s largest open-air museums. Visitors can explore more than 100 residential and farm buildings from the Bavarian Forest, dating from 1580 to 1890, across 20 hectares. They include farmhouses, mills, sawmills, smithies, chapels and field monuments; the museum village is also home to Germany’s oldest elementary school, dating from 1666.

Choose the focus of your stay

Those who also include the wider travel destination of Passau will find further distinct nature and culture themes there. This makes it possible to choose where to stay based on the interests you would like to explore.

Discover more destinations: Beutelsbach, Hofkirchen, Tettenweis, Ruhstorf, Windorf, Untergriesbach, Wegscheid, Hutthurm

Back to the wider travel overview: Passau.