Hiking and singing somehow belong together. A singing trail therefore connects villages, choirs, nature and music in the various districts of Weinheim in the Odenwald—a story about a very special community project.
If you want to understand why there is a singing trail in Weinheim, you have to leave the rolling hills of the Odenwald for a moment and travel downstream along the Rhine for a while and then turn eastwards when you reach the cathedral city of Cologne, into the Bergisches Land region. Just like the Weinheim pop and jazz choir did during a trip in May 2022. Together with the singers of a choir they were friends with they visited the municipality of Lindlar, around 30 kilometres east of Cologne. The oldest known forest in the world is said to have once been there. However, what is surely there is a singing trail. Along the trail of about four kilometres, 12 signposts invite you to listen—and to sing along. “I immediately thought that this would fit very well in the Odenwald,” recalls Ursula Groß.
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The Salto Vocale women’s choir recorded Der Mond ist aufgegangen for station 6.
Three years later, the amateur singer is standing at the Bildstock wayside shrine in Oberflockenbach. With her on this spring morning are the village elders of Oberflockenbach and Rippenweier as well as the head of the Sängerbund Oberflockenbach singers’ club. Final arrangements are made, flyers and information materials are exchanged.
Final arrangements are made before they sing and hike along.
The Odenwald is at its best with a bright blue sky with a few white clouds, meadows and forests glowing in lush green, and a fresh breeze blowing. Perfect conditions for a hike. Ursula’s husband Theo Groß has come along. It was with him that she initiated the Weinheim singing trail—which is becoming a reality today. A local company is in the process of erecting signposts along the trail. The huge drill bores effortlessly into the ground, lifting earth and depositing it everywhere. A little more cement, then the first signposts are up—turning an idea into a hiking trail of a special kind, another “Weinheimer Weg” trail.
Oberflockenbach declared itself…
… a “singing village” in 2019…
… making it an ideal place for a resonant hiking trail.
The trail leads past the wayside shrine in Oberflockenbach…
… into the Odenwald.
Signposts like this one will soon aid hikers along the trail…
… that involved the work of many musical persons.
Originally, Ursula and Theo had planned a “very modest” version. “We had about two kilometres in mind, from the church in Heiligkreuz to the town hall in Rippenweier,” the initiator reports. She and her husband quickly realised that they would not be able to implement their idea on their own. They presented it to the local council. “The idea took off immediately,” says Theo.
An incredible number of people took part in the project
Ursula Groß about the singing trail
Some 20 stations spread over ten kilometres now invite you to listen and linger. There is a QR code at each station to enable hikers to listen to musical contributions. The trail not only connects the three parts of the Weinheim district of Rippenweier, but it also includes the neighbouring district of Oberflockenbach, which again consists of three parts. In 1972, the formerly independent villages were incorporated into Weinheim and have since formed part of Weinheim on its outskirts in the middle of the Odenwald.
The hiking trail leads around Oberflockenbach, the “singing village.”
And it is obviously a particularly musical part. Oberflockenbach declared itself a “singing village” back in 2019 thanks to its numerous choirs, as a plaque at the entrance to the village proclaims. The response to Ursula and Theo’s idea was naturally positive. A choir, a band or a combo recorded a song for each of the stations. The repertoire ranges from Country Road to the Badener Lied and Am Brunnen vor dem Tore.
There is a QR code at each station to enable hikers to listen to musical contributions.
The songs are sung by kindergarteners and pupils, amateur choirs, musical families, but also by the legendary Odenwälder Teufelsgeiger (literally: the Odenwald devil violinists) or the old men of the handball section of the Oberflockenbach gymnastics club. “An incredible number of people took part in the project,” Ursula says delightedly. Everyone who she, her husband and Nicole Schmitt, chairwoman of the Oberflockenbach singers’ club, asked was ready to join in. Many of them got really committed, too. For example, choirmaster Burkhard Hildebrandt set the poem Am Eichelberg to music especially for station 15. The Oberflockenbach kindergarten even got its own hymn because of the singing trail.
A couple of garden gnomes are hidden along the singing trail.
Ursula describes herself as the one of her family “just bringing up the rear”. Her daughter studied music and plays in the Rhine-Neckar jazz orchestra. Her granddaughter is studying at the Mannheim Popakademie university and sings on stage as Ceycey. Singing did not play a major role in the life of the initiator of the singing trail for a long time. Like her husband, she was born in Mannheim. She later moved with her parents from the centre of Mannheim to the Odenwald at the end of the 1950s. She was just six years old at the time. “This place became paradise for me,” she enthuses. There was no question that her husband would also move to the Odenwald after their wedding. They both say that they only sang when they were at school and not for a long time after that. It was only when they retired that they started looking for choirs, each choosing a different one. Ursula was drawn to jazz, which she had already listened to with her father, when she was a child. Her husband sings in the Rippenweier men’s choir. “I like the fact that we sing almost everything there,” he says.
Ursula and Theo Groß still enjoy hiking along the singing trail themselves.
Theo and the men’s choir have recorded a song for station 2 of the singing trail, singing the folk song Hab mein Wage voll gelade. However, he likes station 6 best, where the Salto Vocale women’s choir performs Der Mond ist aufgegangen. His wife prefers station 7, where her own choir, the Weinheim jazz and pop choir, sings the Weinheim anthem. Manfred Maser (also known as Prof. Dr. Alfons Netwohr from the Odenwald shanty choir) composed it especially for the Heimattage 2025 event in Weinheim; and Norbert Thiemel and Michelle Walker set it to music. The piece is the only contribution not recorded by a group from the Odenwald parts of Weinheim, but by a choir from the town itself. For Ursula this clearly shows that “the singing trail has not only brought the villages closer together, but also strengthened the sense of belonging to Weinheim.”
You can hike along the Liederweg singing trail in two sections. The first section runs for four kilometres from the church in Heiligkreuz to the wayside shrine in Oberflockenbach, the second section for six kilometres from the wayside shrine to the Wünschmichelbach TV sports ground. There are bus stops at the trailhead and terminus of each section.
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