My Great Journey in the Germanic Urheimat

[Rik]

Lately, I've got this idea of journeying (by bicycle/foot) in the Germanic urheimat (after a few years ofcourse, I'm to young now) and visiting lots of historical places. The main route is:

Emden -> along the Ems -> northeast North Rhine-Westphalia ->
Inland Lower Saxony (except the part west of the Ems) ->
Inland Mecklenburg-Vorpommern -> Usedom & Rügen -> Coastal Mecklenburg-Vorpommern -> Hamburg -> Coastal Lower Saxony ->
Lower Saxon Islands -> Sleswick-Holstein -> Danish Jutland ->
Danish Islands (including Bornholm) -> Copenhagen -> Skane ->
Eastern Swedish shore & islands -> Sundsvall ->
180° turn, into inland Sweden -> Skane -> western Swedish shore ->
southern Norway -> southwestern Norwegian shore -> Steinkjer.

In other words: A very long trip and I will need a lot of money for it.
But also lots of information. So I need your help.
So please post archealogical sites, monuments, heathen places and information about the various tribes inhabitating the area. Especially information about more obscure places/sites/tribes is required. Afterall, the trips needs to be worth it. I will frequently bump this thread when require more info.

I added 4 attachments showing the areas I will visit.
The German map is incorrect, I forget to southern part of Lower Saxony.

Help a Teuton out.

(P.S. : This thread is probarly in the wrong sub-forum, excuse me for that.)

[Thusnelda]

I hope your journey will be a success and brings you lots of fun and new aspects! Your route in Germany is restricted to Northern German regions so I´m afraid that I can´t help you on this. But I´d love if you keep us up-to-date and post some photos of your journey. Maybe fellow Germans from Northern Germany can help you.

[Patrioten]

Though I haven't been that far south myself one thing that sprung to mind was the rock carvings at Tanum which might be of interest to you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanumshede

[Hersir]

In Steinkjer, visit Egge. There was a longhouse there and burial mounds. They are going to build another longhouse there, it might already be done? In Steinkjer there is also a viking festival each year, its not so very serious but its fun.

You should also visit Stiklestad where the peasant army defeated Olav Digre (the holy).
In Trondheim there is the Lade gård where the Ladejarl's ran much of Norway, next to it is one of the oldest stone churches in Norway. Before there was a great heathen hov on the site, its mentioned in the sagas too, but the christians tore it down. Voluspå and fagerskinna is most likely written on Lade by icelandic scalds. Also the ship Ormen Lange was built on Lade, and famous vikings have lived here, like Harald Hårfagre. Down to the sea there is a folk tale about a jotun which lived there, called Blæster. The band Lumsk made a song about him I think.
There are some viking statues in Trondheim like the one of Leif Ericson on the pir: http://www.leiferikson.org/Trondheim.htm

and Olav Tryggvason is in the middle of the market place in sentrum of town. There are also some small museums with viking and middle age and older items. Some phallos stones from the stone and bronze age for example.

If you by any chance visit the west of Norway you could go to the sverd i fjell monument outside of Stavanger http://www.odyssei.com/gallery/1044_...i_fjell_04.jpg

And on Sognefjellet you can visit the head of Mimir. In Sogndal, on Fimreite, there was a big battle in 1184 which Norway was lost to a danish king. There is a momument to remember the fallen there.

Tønsberg has some middle age stuff you can see, they also have a middle age festival each summer (As do Oslo). There are also some rock carvings in Hegra outside of Norway and other places.

If you get the chance to visit Bohuslän in Sweden, there is alot of rock carvings there. The area is a old Norwegian area and its very rich on rock carvings. And ofcouse Birka.

In Germany I would recommend externsteine and Teutoburger forest if you can make it.

[Florian Geyer]

What a fantastic idea for a road trip. Personally, I would start at a point further south. Perhaps Bavaria or Austria starting at Graz or maybe Munich. It doesn't seem right to start halfway up.

Good luck with your plans though.

[Rik]

I hope your journey will be a success and brings you lots of fun and new aspects! Your route in Germany is restricted to Northern German regions so I´m afraid that I can´t help you on this. But I´d love if you keep us up-to-date and post some photos of your journey. Maybe fellow Germans from Northern Germany can help you.

The journey won't be in the near future, so you'll have to wait for photos. It will probarly be in 4-5 years. I need to get a considerable amount of money and information first.

What a fantastic idea for a road trip. Personally, I would start at a point further south. Perhaps Bavaria or Austria starting at Graz or maybe Munich. It doesn't seem right to start halfway up.

Good luck with your plans though.

As I said in the original post: The journey focuses on the Germanic Urheimat (Pre-Roman Iron Age and earlier). Because the Germanic area after that era is much larger, that will be for another trip. First of all, I want to see the roots of our culture.

Also *bump*. Come on, northern Germans/Frisians/Saxons, I definitly need some more information about North Germany.

[Bernhard]

In northern Germany I would definitely pay a visit to the Lüneburger Heide. Beautiful nature(I haven't been there myself yet though) and the wolf as returned a while ago. Maybe in a couple of years when you will make your trip, the wolves will have really settled down. I also can remember seeing a picture of a beautiful ancient Germanic Dingplatz there, although I can't find any information about it. Maybe someone else knows more about this? There are some other Germanic sacred places there as well I think.
I see Rügen is on your list as well, that's worth a visit of course. I have been there this summer(only one day because I was passing through). It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The white cliffs and the darkgreen beeches - oh how I love beeches - kind of gave it a tropical impression. Walking in beech forests is great as well, the tree trunks are like pillars of a natural cathedral carrying a roof of green leaves. Close to the cliff called the Königsstuhl you can find a sacrificial stone and another one next to it. There is large mound of earth, which is a remnant of a Slavic fortification. I think there are more interesting places going back to heathen times there, although it is possible that most of them date back to the time of Slavic settlement on Rügen.
Caspar David Friedrich made a beautiful painting of the cliffs by the way:


You can find one of the few great buildings built during the Third Reich as well on Rügen in Prora:


Edit: When visiting the Königsstuhl in Rügen I remember that there was a lot to do for tourists so I think that it is very crowded during the day in summer. I advise you to go in the evening. When we were on the beach in the evening it was completely desserted and it was beautiful when the white cliffs coloured red because of the setting sun.

[Ocko]

On the river Ems are some really old ships, I think they are in Papenburg.

in Wildeshausen is the 'Visbecker Braeutigam' a prehistoric stone grave

The musem in Emden has old findings from the moor, (including some ancient moor carcasses.)

In Marienhave you find the old Stoertebeker tower as well as some old fisherboats.

In Cloppenburg you find the 'Freilichtmuseum'. It has old germanic buildings reconstructed or relocated.

[Rik]

*bump*
Seriously, there must be more stuff in North Germany?

[runder]

It's a little out of the way from your stated itinerary (probably about 75 km SE of the Ems, 50 KM SE of Paderborn), but my wife and I went to Soest, NRW as part of our honeymoon trip and had a blast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soest,_Germany

Soest is a historic little city. It was one of the leading North German cities as in the medieval period. It actually won a war of independence against Cologne in the late 1400s but, by winning the war, lost its prominence as the old trade routes controlled by Cologne were re-routed elsewhere. It has many old cathedrals built out of local green stone, and it has a very old hall of records dating back to the middle ages.

Soest is in the border of the scenic Sauerland, and the Möhnesee is nearby. It's a great place to bike and hike.