Lower Lusa­tia Min­ing Route

The Lower Lusa­tia Min­ing Route is a jour­ney of dis­cov­ery through more than 150 years of lig­nite min­ing his­tory. The long-dis­tance cycle route runs for over 500km through south­ern Bran­den­burg, with a short sec­tion in north­ern Sax­ony. Along the way you can explore a mix of indus­trial her­itage, such as the stops along the ENERGY Route, pic­turesque towns and vil­lages, colos­sal open-cast mines and newly trans­formed land­scapes.

Wher­ever you look as you’re cycling along there is evi­dence of the inten­sive min­ing of brown coal, includ­ing the remain­ing active quar­ries with their huge exca­va­tors. Van­tage points look­ing out across the three work­ing open-cast mines reveal wide expanses of land and gar­gan­tuan machines. And if these views from a dis­tance are not enough, there are spe­cial tours that take you down to the coal­face. A num­ber of stops along the min­ing route bring to life work­ing con­di­tions in days gone by, engi­neer­ing his­tory and the every­day life of the min­ers.

• Knap­pen­rode Energy Fac­tory is one of the places that demon­strates how the mined coal was used. Three times a day, there’s an ear-split­ting sound that used to indi­cate the begin­ning of a shift.
• At the F60 vis­i­tor mine you can mar­vel at the biggest piece of machin­ery in the world. Between heaven and earth on the ‘hor­i­zon­tal Eif­fel tower’ of Lusa­tia you get to look out over the land­scape from heights of up to 80 metres on guided tours.
• At the Dieselkraftwerk Art Museum in Cot­tbus you can admire mod­ern art in the indus­trial set­ting of a for­mer diesel-fired power sta­tion.
• One of the high­lights of a visit to Kraftwerk Plessa power sta­tion is the impres­sive con­trol cen­tre.
• The town of Lauch­ham­mer is famed as much for orna­men­tal cast­ing as it is for coal and heavy engi­neer­ing. The Biotürme tow­ers of its for­mer cok­ing plant, now an indus­trial mon­u­ment, offer unusual per­spec­tives from two obser­va­tion plat­forms.
• The Archive of Lost Towns (Archiv ver­schwun­dener Orte) doc­u­ments the his­tory of places in Lusa­tia that have had to make way for the open-cast mines.

Dur­ing the course of the cycling tour you find out how the land­scapes left behind by min­ing are being renat­u­ralised and turned into places of recre­ation. The best exam­ple is Lake Sen­ften­berg, which has been pop­u­lar with swim­mers and water sports enthu­si­asts for four decades. Just a few kilo­me­tres fur­ther along is Lake Grossräschen, a part of the Lusa­t­ian Lake­land in the mak­ing. The IBA Ter­races on its shore have a unique archi­tec­ture.

Dis­tance: 516km
Start/end: Sen­ften­berg
Logo/route marker: Red devil on a bicy­cle

Route: Sen­ften­berg, Schwarzheide, Lauch­ham­mer, Klet­twitz, Lichter­feld (detour), Freien­hufen, Calau, Royal Drehna, Hin­den­berg, Gross Beu­chow, Lübbe­nau/Spree For­est, Rad­dusch, Vetschau/Spree For­est, Wüsten­hain, Casel, Kolk­witz, Cot­tbus, Teich­land, Bärenbrück, Jänschwalde Kolonie, Drewitz, Kerk­witz, Griessen, Neu Sacro, Gosda, Gross Jamno, Gahry, Mat­ten­dorf, Döbern, Bohs­dorf, Hornow, Blois­chdorf, Sel­l­essen, Sprem­berg, Spree­witz, Burg, Lohsa, Mortka, Knap­pen­rode, Hoy­er­swerda, Burg, Sprem­berg, Steinitz, Geisendorf, Wel­zow, Neu­peter­shain, Pritzen, Grossräschen, Sedlitz, Sen­ften­berg

Please note that the route sign­post­ing is cur­rently being revised. The track has already been adapted to the new route guid­ance. The sign­post­ing should be adapted in sum­mer 2024.

Ter­rain: mostly asphalted cycle paths and cycle lanes, some sec­tions also on side roads, unpaved paths or paved roads, some root rup­tures, few gra­di­ents

Com­bi­na­tion options:

• Seen­land Route
• Prince Pückler Cycle Route
• Spree Cycle Route
• Oder-Neisse Cycle Route

Route

Lower Lusa­tia Min­ing Route leaflet

You can down­load or order a free leaflet to get a bet­ter idea about the route before you start your tour. In addi­tion to infor­ma­tion about the route and a map, the leaflet also con­tains rec­om­men­da­tions for attrac­tions, accom­mo­da­tion options and bicy­cle hire firms along the way.

Order Lower Lusa­tia Min­ing Route leaflet (Ger­man)

Pack­ages for your cycle tour on the Lower Lusa­tia Min­ing Route

You can book a set pack­age or a cus­tom itin­er­ary for the Lower Lusa­tia Min­ing Route. All book­ings include accom­mo­da­tion in qual­ity mid-range hotels, maps and lug­gage trans­fers.

Zur Radreise Nieder­lausitzer Berg­bau­tour

Rec­om­mended maps

Walk­ing and cycling maps, pub­lished by Sach­sen Kar­togra­phie GmbH:

• Land­kreis Ober­spree­wald-Lausitz, 1:50.000, ISBN 978-3-86843-058-5
• Lausitzer Seen­land, 1:50.000, ISBN 978-3-86843-021-9

Ser­vices for your cycling hol­i­day

Hol­i­day cyclists’ needs are well catered for all along the Lower Lusa­tia Min­ing Route, with a wide choice of cyclist-friendly Bed & Bike accom­mo­da­tion. Our tourist infor­ma­tion offices will be happy to arrange accom­mo­da­tion along the Lower Lusa­tia Min­ing Route for you. Click the links below for an overview of Bed & Bike accom­mo­da­tion and bicy­cle hire firms in the Lusa­t­ian Lake­land. 

• Cyclist-friendly Bed & Bike accom­mo­da­tion
• Bicy­cle hire firms
• Overview of tourist infor­ma­tion offices

Notes about the route

About the red devil

The red devil is the emblem of the Rekord bri­quette com­pany and the sym­bol for coal from Lusa­tia. It now also rep­re­sents the Lower Lusa­tia Min­ing Route. The devil plays a promi­nent role in the myths and leg­ends of Lusa­tia, more so than in most other parts of Ger­many. Almost any­thing bad that hap­pens to peo­ple here is attrib­uted to the devil, known as ‘Tscheren­bog’ in the Sor­bian lan­guage. As the min­ing folk say with a know­ing smile: “God cre­ated Lusa­tia, and the devil hid the coal – but we found it and dug it all up again!”

Stage rec­om­men­da­tions