Drei-Burgen-Weg Taunus

On a hunch we decided to drive out to Königstein in the Taunus Area to walk the so called "3 Burgen Weg" connecting three castles, well, the ruins anyways, into a 13km hike.

The trail officially starts by Castle Königstein, so we walked up there. Entry to the castle is a about three Euros. We saved those though, because we mostly came for the hike itself and didn't want to spend too much time exploring castle ruins. From there the path leads through the town of Königstein and then enters the Falkensteiner Hain, a forest area around a hill. The next "milestone" is the "Dettweiler Tempel", a small pavilion smack on top of the hill, offering a fantastic view towards Franfurt.

Moving on towards Castle Falkenstein we came by some remains of a castle called Burg Nüring, that was the predecessor to Burg Frankenstein. It's really just the foundations of the man tower, but we still think this counts and it should really be called the "Vier-Burgen-Weg".

The ascent from Königstein to Castle Falkenstein was longer than we had anticipated. Not in a bad way, because we hadn't really expected much. So we really liked the trail so far.

The Castle itself was very busy with families hanging out, so we didn't spend too much time there and instead continued on almost right away. Here the path leads down into the town of Falkenstein. It crosses the town and after a few hundred meters returns into the forest on the other side of the town. Here we came by some pretty cool wooden scultpures made from whole logs that were carved into people.

The foresty part that came after Falkenstein was one of the best parts of the trail in our opinion. Ascents, rocks, strange rock formations, a little bit of all of it. From the Bürgel, a small plateau we had a great view onto the Castle Falkenstein that we had visited just before.

Then we got a little bit lost as the signs weren't as visible and clear here than they had been closer to the towns. So we used our hiking app Komoot instead to find our track back into Kronberg.

Once again walking through a town we made our way to the Castle Kronberg. It started getting late in the day, as we were slower than expected, so we just passed by the castle and then continued on. The trail now led past the Opel Zoo back to Königstein.

We liked the alternation between natural highlights, culture and history. It was a bit more demanding than expected, but not too exhausting. Well marked in most areas, only the section after the Burg Falkenstein turned out to be a little confusing. If that troubles you, bring your smartphone with an app to help navigate.

Since we brought our own water and snacks we didn't nee it, but the trail leads through several towns so it shouldn't be too hard to find something to eat and drink if you like to take a rest somewhere.