It comes naturally to a region that is named after two rivers: Although the large towns of Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg are located at its centre, the area surrounding the Rhine and the Neckar is green—lushly green, indeed: More than a third of the surface, an area as large as 213,000 hectares, is composed of forest. That’s not including the three reserves: Palatinate Forest Nature Park, Neckartal-Odenwald Nature Park and Geo-Naturepark Bergstrasse-Odenwald. You can find practically all types of landscape here, except for alpine and seaside conditions: So come with us and explore it from the urban landscapes in the Rhine Rift Valley to the Odenwald and Palatinate Forest low mountain ranges with their sun-kissed slopes along the Haardt range and the Bergstraße area and to the hills of the Kraichgau and Bauland regions. We will show you how climate change has changed the grape harvest and fruit crop, or where to best do forest bathing in the Palatinate, or that you can climb through geological history high up above the Neckar river.
Hungry plants
Freinsheim is home to Germany’s largest nursery for carnivorous plants
High up, deep down
Paying a visit to the Geozentrum Tromm in the Odenwald
Into the blue
Anne and Matthias Gaul have planted large fields of lavender in Grünstadt-Asselheim.
The Gleisweiler health shower
An unusual piece of the history of medicine waits for you in Hainbachtal.
The bee whisperer
Honey from the Odenwald: the Willared Organic Apiary