This is without doubt the hardest stage of the Malerweg until now. It goes up and down. Again and again. However, this also means you’ll get great views on the surroundings.
We camped a few kilometers before the small town of Altendorf. There was a large meadow between the railroad and the river.
The trail continues a little bit along the river but very soon a long but steady climb eventually took us to Altendorf.
We were happy to find an older woman awake early enough on Sunday morning to refill our water bottles.
The Malerweg trail follows a wide track from Altendorf. First along some grass fields but pretty soon you’ll enter the forest again.
In the forest, the wide track continues on the same level, but the Malerweg goes into the deep with a concatenation of natural, wooden and metal staircases build over a small stream.
At some places in the forest you’ll get a preview of what’s coming next. Big rock formation of the typical sandstone are rising above the treeline.
We had no clue yet, that pretty soon we would find ourselves high on those cliffs!
You’ll noticed many more day tourists here in this area. They all come here for the magnificent panorama view point called ‘Schrammsteinaussicht’. The path is very steep and due to the amount of people taking this route, there is a strict one way rule.
The Malerweg does not follow the signs to the ‘Schrammsteinaussicht’. Instead, the Malerweg takes an alternative approach and only starts climbing a few hundred meter further. At the top, the Malerweg continues to the right, but those who still want to see the ‘Schrammsteinaussicht’ can follow a marked (in both directions) path on top of the cliffs to this famous view.
Since Lada has a little fear of heights, and since not so few people where coming from the opposite direction on a relative narrow path, I went to see this view below on my own. It’s about 10 minutes away of the official Malerweg trail, but definitely worth it. Although being a bit overcrowded.
I took some photos, and watched a while how a climber with orange shirt slowly made his way up taking the ultimate vertical approach. Then I went back to Lada to continue the Malerweg together. Still many great views before the trail starts to descend.
A bit confusion occurs when our GPS trail shows a different path than the marked trail. Especially when one of the options immediately starts climbing again and the other one just continues on the same level.
Of course we kept following the marked trail and discovered plenty of wonderful places.
We got a little tired of this intense part with constantly climbing and descending. Especially when it looks like we are surround by sandstone rocks wherever we look.
Finally we arrived on a wide sandy trail trough a forest. Then a long descend on an hardened road – with one more spectacular view – brought us to the Kirnitzschtal. A road we also took yesterday with the car.
The Malerweg follow the road for a while but then crosses the river and start for a final climb through a forest. First it just looked like the creators of the Malerweg just wanted to avoid the asphalted road but then we find out there still was a spectacular nature wonder waiting at the end of this stage of the Malerweg.
All what’s left now is descend again to the Kirnitzschtal where our car is parked.
A very rewarding stage of the Malerweg, but not to be tackled without a good physical condition.
We drove back to Waitzdorf – where we passed yesterday. There is a hotel with restaurant and bar where we would have a dinner. We arrived to late for dinner but still got German beer served.
After we watched the sunset from the panorama view near Waitzdorf, we arranged the trunk of the car with a mattress so we could finally have some well deserved rest. Tomorrow, we are heading to Prague. The Malerweg will – hopefully – wait for us.
