A Weekend in Saxony: Hiking in the Saxon Switzerland National Park

On Saturday morning, I headed out of my hotel and onward to Dresden Main Station, as I needed to catch a suburban train that would head to the east. I took the S-Bahn which went all the way to the Czech border, as I wanted to go to Bad Schandau. This is a spa town that is situated at the edge of the Saxon Switzerland National Park, which was my destination for the morning. The train arrived, and sometime later, I found myself at Bad Schandau train station.

The train station is actually situated at the southern side of the Elbe River, while the town as well as the part of the park that I was interested in is in the north. I could walk it, but there's also a bus that conveniently arrived which took me to the northern side. I hopped in it, after making sure I had enough supplies.

And a few minutes later, I was at the park, at the trail head. My destination for the day was the Schrammsteinaussicht, a prominent vista point on top of rocks, with a view to the entire plain below.



I followed the Lattengrund trail in the beginning, which involved a long series of staircases, slowly ascending amongst tall trees and large rocks.



Then, I found myself slithering between the cracks of these tall rocks. This is quite an interesting trail scenery-wise. It actually kept the temperature cool, since the sun doesn't really penetrate these crevices, so there's no bright sun shining on you.



After a while, the trail levels out slightly, and you'll be going on a casual walk among the trees. But this is just a short section of the trail, and shortly after the view becomes interesting yet again.



What comes next is in my opinion one of the best parts of the trail, which are the relatively challenging portions of it. No technical skills are required, but you definitely have to have good shoes. This part of the trail are one-way only, so descending takes you somewhere else. There are metal staircases involved, and sometimes there are even ladders you have to climb. This part is definitely fun!



When you finally get to the Schrammsteinaussicht, you'll see that you're on the very top of a large rock, overlooking the wide open plain. If you had brought a packed lunch it's great to eat it here, just bring back your litter down and dispose it elsewhere. This was where I ended up on Saturday, and after spending some time on the top, I headed back down, and took a different path going downwards due to the one-way trails. An hour or so later, I found myself in the centre of Bad Schandau, and I found a place to get some lunch.