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Hiking in Leipzig’s Neuseenland

Where lignite was once mined, visitors can now marvel at the unique scenery on hiking tours.
Where lignite was once mined, visitors can now marvel at the unique scenery on hiking tours. Photo: Getty Images

September 3, 2024, 6:37 am | Read time: 3 minutes

Many people associate hiking with natural landscapes – but Leipzig’s Neuseenland is quite different. Where lignite was once mined, visitors can now marvel at the unique scenery on hiking tours. Here is how an abandoned place is being rediscovered.

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Hiking in is a unique experience.

“The Bavarians have the mountains and the lakes. We Leipzigers create them ourselves,” says Henry May from the Mining Technology Park. The tanned tour guide with strong hands and a soft Saxon dialect could easily be a miner. But he only pretends to be one to make people think about the villages that were dredged up and the people who were resettled. So that the “GDR’s hunger for energy could be satisfied,” as he emphasizes. Now there are 40 square kilometers of green dumps and flooded open-cast mining pits.

Leipzig created its own water-hiking country

Wolfgang Flohr is not the only one who is convinced that Leipzig can create its own water hiking region. Ten years ago, he was looking for a tour that would connect the region’s special features, viewpoints, and attractions and make them better known. A year later, he launched the first Seven Lakes Hike. Today, there are guided tours between five and 104 kilometers in length, day and night. For so many hikers, wide, firm paths and compromises are required.

Der Bergbau-Technik-Park bietet auch Touren bei Nacht an
The Bergbau-Technik-Park also offers tours at night. Photo: Mining Technology Park

Like the tour to the Trages slag heap, which has the highest elevation in the area. However, the route there leads along the B95 federal highway. Claudia Siebeck is therefore designing a new hiking trail for the Leipzig Region Tourism Association. It will connect seven lakes but will avoid main roads and asphalt. “I based it on the criteria of the German Hiking Association,” she says.

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A floating island

Siebeck’s trail starts in the center of Neuseenland on the shores of Lake Cospuden, which the people of Leipzig affectionately call “Cossi” and where they enjoy water sports and beach volleyball in summer. You can learn that wherever a lake has been created, villages have also been dredged up at the Place of Lost Places in Großzössen or on the floating cultural island of Vineta in Lake Störmthal.

But people have reclaimed the landscape. “Swimming, cycling, and hiking are the three main needs of guests,” says Siebeck. And all of this is possible around Leipzig – in a truly unique setting.

Einst stand hier die Magdeborner Kirche, dann musste sie für den Tagebau weichen. Heute erinnert die Vineta, eine schwimmende Kulturinsel, an die Kirche.
The Magdeborn church once stood here, but then had to make way for open-cast mining. Today, the Vineta, a floating cultural island, is a reminder of the church. Photo: dpa picture alliance

The German original of this article was published in 2017.

This article is a machine translation of the original German version of TRAVELBOOK and has been reviewed for accuracy and quality by a native speaker. For feedback, please contact us at info@petbook.de.

Topics Germany Leipzig
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