From Trier to Völklingen and Lorsch, via Speyer to Maulbronn

Welcome to Roma Secunda, as they say in Trier. From here, the route leads southwards through the Hunsrück nature reserve into the Saarland, one of the country’s most important industrial landscapes which has been shaped by its history of iron and steel production.

This is the home of the “Iron Cathedral“, the old Völklingen ironworks. The route to our next stop, Lorsch, runs briefly through the southerly Palatinate Forest and then along the Rhine to Speyer, the imperial cathedral city on the Upper Rhine.

The final stop is the Maulbronn monastery in the heart of the Swabian wine region. Nestling amid the natural beauties of the Kraichgau-Stromberg, this is an idyllic holiday region, full of natural beauty and rich in places of interest, deciduous woods, meadows and steep vine-covered hills.