Grüne-Rummel-Wanderweg, walking trail

This circular trail, around 11 kilometres in length, goes from the Naturparkzentrum (Nature Park Centre) in the ‘Alte Brennerei’ in Raben to the foot of Rabenstein Castle, through the Meiereiheide woodland to the ‘Grüner Rummel’ (Green Valley) and into the Planetal Valley. This tour provides you with tranquillity and romantic nature.Length: 10 kilometres (approximately 2.5 hours)Start / finish: Hoher Fläming Naturparkzentrum (Nature Park Centre) in Raben (Fläming)Logo / route sign: green bow on a white squareHow to get there:Train: Take the RE7 (Dessau) from Berlin central station (Hauptbahnhof) to Bad Belzig. From here take bus number 572 to Raben (approximately 1.5 hours).Car: From Berlin via the B101, A10 and the A9 to Raben (about 2 hours).Route description: The tour starts in Raben and leads to the feet of Rabenstein Castle through thick woodland just after Zehrensdorf. The handful houses here were once a ‘real’ village before it was deserted. Academics have been unable to agree on whether this was caused by the Thirty Years War, a plague or other reasons. The piles of stones that can be seen now and then in the forest used to lie in the field that has since become wooded.
There was even a church, a windmill and a dairy farm here in the past. It is the latter that gave the woodland its name Meiereiheide, which means ‘dairy meadow’. The area is interesting from a botanical point of view as the home of the round-leaved bedstraw, a low-mountain plant. Other ‘mountain-dwellers’ including the grey wagtail, the Alpine planarian (a type of flatworm) and the Alpine newt, also feel at home here. The path then gets narrower and the slopes steeper and steeper – you’ve now reached the Green Valley! This is one of the many labyrinthine dry valleys in the Fläming region, created by melting ice in the last ice age.
When you reach the end of the Meiereiheide you will find a beautiful view from a plateau down into the Planetal Valley – the endpoint of this hiking trail. Right by a wet meadow where the source of the River Plane lies, the narrow path meanders down the stream, which forms sharp bends as it coils through a stunning floodplain. Take a last look over the fields of meadowsweet with its summertime fragrance and then cross the River Plane once more before you finally reach Raben again.Possible combinations:Burgenwanderweg (Castle Hiking Trail)Bergmolchwanderweg (Alpine Newt Hiking Trail)Trail conditions/surface: not specifiedMaps / Literature: "Topographische Freizeitkarte - Wandern, Reiten, Radfahren Naturpark Hoher Fläming", 1:50.000, Verlag: Landesvermessung und Geobasisinformation Brandenburg, Auflage: Neuauflage. (1. Januar 2012), ISBN 978-3-7490-4073-5, Euro 6