Rheinböllen: Wildlife Park, Hiking Trails and Puricelli History

Discover Rheinböllen through its many highlights

Rheinböllen appeals to different travel interests: the wildlife park puts animals at the centre, the Puricelli Circular Trail combines hiking with local history, and historic buildings invite you to explore architecture and the past. When choosing accommodation, you can first consider whether wildlife watching, a longer walk or historical topics should be the focus of your stay. This way, you can shape your trip around the experiences that interest you most.

Wildlife park: animals, accessibility and a break by the lake

Rheinböllen Wildlife Park is home to more than 35 animal species, including bison, brown bears, wolves, kangaroos, otters, llamas and raccoons, as well as several breeds of domestic animals. The wildlife park is largely accessible to visitors with limited mobility. Check the latest accessibility information before your visit, as details about facilities may be updated.

The Wald-Bistro serves regional specialities and snacks, and its terrace overlooks the lake. The food and snack selection may change. Wildlife watching and a break with a lake view offer a different focus from the historic sites and viewpoints along the hiking trails.

Puricelli Circular Trail: twelve kilometres of history and nature

The 12-kilometre Puricelli Circular Trail starts and ends at the Rheinböllen community centre. Along the way, it passes the Lutherglocke memorial, the Protestant rectory, Puricelli Stift and Marienkapelle. The old cemetery is also on the route, with historic gravestones still preserved there. The loop brings together various traces of local history, rather than leading to just one attraction.

The circular trail also reaches the wildlife park car park, where hikers can choose to visit the park. A detour leads to a 400-year-old oak designated as a natural monument, with a trunk circumference of more than 5.50 metres. A viewpoint offers views across Rheinböllen towards Ellern, and the route also passes a naturally formed biotope. The stated distance is a practical guide for planning a hike, while the stops make the loop varied, taking in architectural history, a cemetery and a natural monument.

Hochsteinchen and the Soonwaldsteig: observation tower and protected landscapes

Hochsteinchen is a 648-metre-high rock formation on the eastern edge of the Großer Soon. Visitors can climb a listed steel tower there. The tower is 18 metres high, has two platforms and offers views towards the Bad Kreuznach district and the neighbouring Palatinate region. The Hochsteinchen Tour starts and ends at the Schanzerkopf car park. There is also a rest area with a shelter at Hochsteinchen.

Another hiking option is the fourth stage of the Soonwaldsteig, which runs from Ellerspring to Rheinböllerhütte near Rheinböllen. The stage crosses the Glashütter Wiesen nature reserve, home to rare flowers and summer grasses, and touches the Katzenkopf forest nature reserve, an old beech forest. These offer different hiking themes: local history and a specified distance on the Puricelli Circular Trail, a tower and views at Hochsteinchen, and protected landscapes on the Soonwaldsteig stage.

Architecture and traces of history

The chapel at Puricelli Stift in Rheinböllen was built in 1887 and 1888 in the Neo-Gothic style. Its Neo-Gothic mosaic floor is considered unique in Rhineland-Palatinate in terms of its size and colours. In the 19th century, Rheinböllerhütte experienced a period of industrial prosperity under the Puricelli family. These two topics offer different historical perspectives: the design of a chapel and the history of an ironworks.

Rheinböllen is said to have had a market square within its walls as early as the 12th century. Market rights are documented for the period between 1314 and 1347. The cautious wording about the early history of the market thus differs from the specific dates for the market rights documented at a later time.

Rhein-Hunsrück as a broader regional setting

The wider Rhein-Hunsrück destination offers a broader view of the landscape. The Rhein-Hunsrück district includes large areas of the Hunsrück, part of the Rhenish Slate Mountains, as well as the section of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley on the left bank of the Rhine. The district also includes large parts of the Hunsrück plateau and quartzite ridges to the south, such as the Soonwald. In the Middle Rhine Valley area, the Rhine forms the district’s eastern boundary. This regional setting complements a closer look at Rheinböllen; it is not a description of specific features of the town.

Discover more destinations

Discover more destinations: Raversbeuren, Wahlenau, Reckershausen, Sabershausen, Sankt Goar, Beulich, Henau and Laufersweiler.

Back to the regional travel overview: Rhein-Hunsrück.