Luneburg Heath

Lüneburg Heath is not a desert as it may seem from the title. It's a huge park. Until 1800 the entire north of Germany was full of such empty spaces, but now only this place remains. Here grows mostly heather, meadow flowers and juniper.


For a long time the industry of Lüneburg was built on the extraction of salt and for its evaporation it was necessary to have a lot of wood. It was cut mostly on the territory of the Heath.

Since 1922 the territory has become a national park, although salt mining was stopped only in 1980. Now this is a great place for hiking and cycling. You need to come in August - early September, during flowering of heather. We walked up to the mountain Wilseder Berg, the highest point of the Heath, this is a standard tourist route. It is not high, only 169 meters, but the views are the best.






Getting there: Parking coordinates N 53 09.052 E 9 54.509 (Niederhaverbeck), then 3.5 km walk to Wilseder Berg. Use the maps.me app to stay on track. By bus, you need to go to the Niederhaverbeck Ortsmitte stop, find timetable on bahn.de.

If you can not walk much, but want to see at the heather, then visit the Heide garden in Schneverdingen. It is small, free and quite beautiful. There is an observation deck and collection of different varieties of heather. Parking coordinates N 53 07.755 E 9 47.858.