A few days ago André and I took advantage of the sunny fall weather and spent two days hiking the Rodalber Felsenwanderweg (offizielle Homepage auf Deutsch, Flyer mit Karte), which is a 45km (28mi) loop path around the small town of Rodalben in the Palatinate Forest, about 100km (60mi) from where we live.
Despite being not very far from the town, most of the path is actually a very narrow footpath through the forest, and it passes about 130 sandstone formations that are at least 15m long and 3m tall, but can be as big as 500m long and 18m tall. Many of them reminded me of the sandstone we’ve seen on our trips to the Southwest of the USA, but instead of being in a desert, these are in the middle of a large forested area with many rocks covered by trees, bushes and smaller plants like moss.
We were very lucky with the weather on the first day (Monday 26 October), which was very sunny. On the second day the sun didn’t manage to break through the fog which rose in the morning, so our hike took on a more mysterious air. The following photos were all taken on the first day.
The Bruderfelsen (brother’s rock) is Rodalben’s landmark, with a legend of two brothers who fought over one woman to go with it.
Detail of a sandstone formation:
There were many, many different mushrooms growing from the ground or tree stumps. Here’s a fly agaric (Fliegenpilz):
Fall colors:
