Gerolzhofen: Old Town, Museums and Hiking Trails
Accommodation in Gerolzhofen
Gerolzhofen combines a historic townscape with museums, a medicinal herb garden, and trails for hiking and cycling. The Steigerwald Cathedral, the medieval town hall, and the double town-wall ring are among the town’s defining features. When planning your trip, you can choose between cultural themes and routes of varying lengths.
Old Town, Collections and Medicinal Herb Garden
In the Old Town, the Wald.Poebel.Tour is a GPS scavenger hunt following in the footsteps of the Gerolzhofen Waldpoebel. Medieval art is a particular focus: the Johanniskapelle Museum “Art and Spirit of the Gothic” is housed in St. John’s Chapel, built in 1497, and the adjacent sexton’s house. The museum opened in October 2006. Its collection includes sculptures and reliefs by artists such as Tilman Riemenschneider and Hans Schäufelin, as well as wooden panel paintings, bells, a Gothic Bible, and liturgical vessels.
The small, privately run Gerolzhofen Beer Mug and Brewery Memorabilia Museum offers a different perspective on Franconian and Bavarian history. It contains around 3,000 stoneware beer mugs collected over a period of more than 100 years. Gerolzhofen thus brings together a range of collecting interests: Gothic art and religious objects on the one hand, and beer mugs and brewery culture on the other.
On the southern edge of town, the NĂĽtzelbachaue Medicinal Herb Garden is located in the nearby NĂĽtzelbachaue recreation area. Covering around 160 square meters, the garden is open to the public and wheelchair accessible. Its twelve themed areas showcase native, medicinal, and protected plants, including culinary herbs, fragrant and poisonous plants, and plants used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. If you would like to include plants and herbs in your plans as well as local history, the garden makes a destination in its own right.
Choose a Hiking Trail by Distance
The Gerolzhofen circular trails G1 to G5 can be compared directly by distance: at 4.8 kilometers, G4 is the shortest of the five, followed by G5 at 6.2 kilometers, G3 at 7.8 kilometers, G2 at 8.5 kilometers, and G1 at 9.5 kilometers. Each figure refers to the named circular trail; the routes also differ in their courses and the points they pass.
G4 starts at the tennis club and returns there via Seeweg, Allesgarten, the vineyards, Denkmal, Weidach, and Nützelbach Lake. The 6.2-kilometer G5 starts at the Berliner Straße parking lot; from there, the loop passes the go-kart track, Lindlachshof, the Dingolshausen sports ground, Volkach, and Neuer See before returning to the starting point. The 7.8-kilometer G3 starts at Nördliche Allee and passes the Protestant church, Weiße Marter, Hörnauer See, Hörnauer Forest, and the Volkach flood-control weir before returning to the starting point.
G2 is 8.5 kilometers long and loops around Gerolzhofen. The 9.5-kilometer G1 also starts at the Berliner Straße parking lot and runs via Neuer See, the fitness trail, Waldesruh, Alterberg, the forest kindergarten, Wiebelsberger Straße, the model airfield, Gertraudiskapelle, and the Jewish cemetery before returning to the starting point. For an alternative route, a 6.3-kilometer section of the Blauer Löffel hiking trail passes through Gerolzhofen. The Weinsteiger runs for 7.3 kilometers via Donnersdorf, Gerolzhofen, and Oberschwarzach. The 45-kilometer Main Hiking Trail also passes through Gerolzhofen, among other places.
Cycling and Getting Around
The 2Franken Cycle Path passes through Gerolzhofen and connects Lower and Upper Franconia. In addition to local hiking trails, cycling routes are another option to consider during your stay. The Gerolzhofen Tourist Information Office provides detailed maps for hikers and cyclists and can help you choose routes tailored to your interests.
The Tourist Information Office also arranges guided tours of Gerolzhofen’s Old Town and medicinal herb garden, as well as museums in the region. The tours it arranges also include wine tastings and vineyard tours in the Weinpanorama Steigerwald. This makes it easy to plan separately for a town tour, collections, and activities in the wider region.
If you’re looking for a hotel in Gerolzhofen, you can start by deciding whether the focus of your stay should be the Old Town and museums, the medicinal herb garden, a hiking route, or the cycle path. The named circular trails can be compared by distance, while the museums and garden offer different points of interest.
Discover More Destinations
Discover more destinations: Sulzheim, Donnersdorf, Frankenwinheim, Waigolshausen, Poppenhausen, Sulzheim, Wipfeld, Stadtlauringen.
For the overview of the wider area, see: Schweinfurt.
