Route One — The Border Trail
Travemünde → Lübeck → Schwerin → Marienborn → Mödlareuth → Hof. About 1,400 kilometres along the former inner-German border. Five days. The Iron Curtain at full length.
The inner-German border ran 1,393 kilometres from the Baltic to the Czechoslovak frontier. Much of its physical infrastructure has been preserved at intervals: watchtowers, sections of fencing, automatic firing devices, dog runs. The route now runs along the Grünes Band — the Green Belt — a continuous nature corridor created by the European wildlife that had spent four decades undisturbed along the death strip. Cycling routes exist along most of it; this is a driving guide.
Days 1–2 — Travemünde / Lübeck. The northern end. The Priwall peninsula, where the border met the Baltic. The small Border Documentation Centre at Schlutup.
Day 3 — Schwerin and the West Mecklenburg border. The lakeside town of Schwerin (a former GDR Land capital, now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). The border villages of the Schaalsee.
Day 4 — Marienborn. The principal crossing point preserved as a memorial.
Day 5 — Mödlareuth and Hof. Finish in southern Thuringia/Bavaria. The "Little Berlin" village.
Route Two — The Plattenbau and Industry Route
Berlin → Eisenhüttenstadt → Cottbus → Hoyerswerda → Dresden → Chemnitz. About 600 kilometres. Five days. The industrial cities of the planned economy.
A route through the cities the GDR built or rebuilt to house its industrial workforce. Each was a showpiece of socialist urbanism in its time; each is now in some stage of post-industrial transformation. The route is sparse on conventional tourist sights and dense on architectural and social history.
Day 1 — Berlin to Eisenhüttenstadt (130km). The original socialist city.
Day 2 — Cottbus (90 km). The Sorbian capital of Lower Lusatia. The Cottbus brown coal mining heritage area.
Day 3 — Hoyerswerda (60 km). The Plattenbau showcase city of the 1960s, with a famous shrinking population (peak 70,000, now around 30,000) and a remarkable degree of preserved 1960s urban planning. The Konrad-Zuse-Computermuseum is in the town.
Day 4 — Dresden (110 km). The cultural capital of the GDR.
Day 5 — Chemnitz (Karl-Marx-Stadt) (75 km). The third city of the GDR, renamed in 1953 and reverted in 1990. The enormous Karl Marx Monument (Lev Kerbel, 1971) is still in the city centre. European Capital of Culture in 2025.
Route Three — The Cultural Cities Route
Berlin → Wittenberg → Leipzig → Weimar/Buchenwald → Erfurt → Eisenach. About 500 kilometres. Five days. The cultural heritage that survived the GDR and unification.
The cultural cities of central Germany — Goethe's Weimar, Bach's Leipzig, Luther's Wittenberg and Eisenach — were preserved through the GDR period with substantial state investment, partly for ideological reasons (the GDR understood itself as a custodian of German Enlightenment heritage in opposition to West Germany's perceived Americanisation) and partly to attract hard-currency tourism. They remain among the most rewarding places to visit in eastern Germany.
Day 1 — Wittenberg. Luther's church door.
Day 2 — Leipzig. Bach's Thomaskirche, the Nikolaikirche, the Zeitgeschichtliches Forum.
Day 3 — Weimar. The Goethe and Schiller houses, the Bauhaus museum, the Anna Amalia Library.
Day 4 — Buchenwald. Half a day at the camp memorial above Weimar; a serious and not negotiable.
Day 5 — Erfurt and Eisenach. Erfurt's preserved medieval old town; Eisenach's Wartburg castle (where Luther translated the New Testament; now UNESCO World Heritage).
End of the routes