Circular hiking trail - "Friedrich-Fröbel" - Bad Blankenburg

From the town hall in Bad Blankenburg - where Friedrich Froebel founded the first kindergarten in 1840 - the trail leads past the buildings of the Evangelical Alliance and Greifenstein Castle to the crest of the Steiger. The Steiger belongs to the shell limestone slopes that separate the Thuringian Forest/Thuringian Slate Mountains from the Thuringian Basin to the north. On the steep southern slope of the Kesselberg, the trail leads slowly uphill and the hiker can experience particularly attractive representatives of the typical vegetation of the shell limestone here: daphne, cowbell, gentian, various orchid species, acelai and silver thistle. In the immediate vicinity of the trail, there are also stands of Europe's oldest tree species, the yew.

On reaching the ridge, it is not only the unobstructed view of the mountains of the Thuringian Slate Mountains and Thuringian Forest that invites you to linger, but also the monument standing here, made of a ball, roller and cube, Friedrich Fröbel's play gifts. It is here that Froebel is said to have had the idea of developing his care, play and employment institution for small children, which he founded in 1837 in (Bad) Blankenburg, into a kindergarten.

The path now leads through the Thuringian Forest.

The path now leads downhill to Keilhau, a small town that today belongs to the city of Rudolstadt. In 1817, Froebel moved his "Allgemeine Deutsche Erziehungsanstalt" (General German Educational Institution), founded in 1816 in Griesheim near Arnstadt, here. Here, together with other important educationalists, he realised many of his ideas on the upbringing and education of children and young people and published his main educational work "Die Menschenerziehung" in 1826.

Today, after a chequered past, the institution is run by the JugendSozialwerk Nordhausen e.V. as the private "Freie Fröbelschule Keilhau" - a speech therapy centre with a curative education residential home. Not far from the speech therapy school complex is the historic Keilhau cemetery, where the graves of Fröbel's comrades-in-arms Barop, Langenthal and Middendorf can be found.

On returning to the school, the path leads as a steep trail to the Bismarck fire column on the Kolmberg. This fire column, damaged in 1945, was financed by donations from the Association of Former Keilhauer and erected within only 5 months. It was inaugurated on 30 July 1899 on the 1st anniversary of Bismarck's death.

Along a nature reserve, the path now leads back up to the Steiger, whose crest is reached at the Baropturm. The Baropturm was built in 1878 by former pupils of the Keilhauer Anstalt to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the long-time director Johannes Arnod Barop. You can get the key to this tower at the school in Keilhau and from the tower you have a wide panoramic view over the tops of the conifers on the mountain away into the whole of Thuringia and, on a particularly clear day, as far as the Brocken in the Harz mountains.

The trail now leads back to Fröbelblick, then continues along the crest of the Steiger and the Kesselberg to the Kesselwarte, a refuge directly above Bad Blankenburg. From here the trail descends back to the starting point in Bad Blankenburg.

The route:
Bad Blankenburg market square - Froebel Museum - Allianzhalle - Burgweg (ascent) - meadow path to Kleingölitz - Fröbelblick (ascent - view) - Keilhau - Baropturm - Fröbelblick - Kammweg to Kesselwarte - youth hostel - Bad Blankenburg

Marking:

The path from the town hall in Bad Blankenburg via Fröbelblick to Fröbelschule Keilhau and back to Fröbelblick is marked with Fröbel's play gifts - ball, roller, cube in red. On the crest of Steiger and Kesselberg to Kesselwarte, it follows the red horizontal line on a white background and from Kesselwarte downwards the red dot on a white background to the town centre of Bad Blankenburg. The town hall of Bad Blankenburg is reached again via Untere Marktstraße.