Schmerbach combines a distinctive townscape with two festival traditions and a named regional route. The old running fountains, the Fountain Festival and the Charcoal Burners’ Festival give the town a variety of cultural connections; Regional Route 2, “Am Großen Inselsberg,” adds a regional route connection to these themes. When planning your stay, you can start by choosing a focus: the townscape, the festival dates or the route.

Old Running Fountains in the Townscape

The old running fountains shape Schmerbach’s townscape and were incorporated into the redesign of its streets and squares. This connects the fountains with the design of the town as a whole. It offers a different way of engaging with local history than the festival tradition alone: the focus here is on how a specific feature is integrated into the streetscape and public squares.

The Fountain Festival and Charcoal-Burning Tradition

The Fountain Festival takes place every year on Whit Sunday. It commemorates the replacement of the wooden troughs at the public fountains with stone ones in 1861. The occasion links a recurring celebration with a clearly identified change to the fountains. The Charcoal Burners’ Festival takes place in the first week of July and celebrates the local tradition of making charcoal. Guests can watch charcoal being made around the charcoal kiln; here, the focus is on the craft, while the Fountain Festival recalls a change to the fountains.

The two festival dates offer different reasons to visit: Whit Sunday or the first week of July. This lets you choose your travel dates based on the festival theme that interests you most.

A Regional Route Connection

Regional Route 2, “Am Großen Inselsberg,” passes through Schmerbach. This adds another point of interest alongside the festivals and running fountains. When planning your trip, you can decide whether a festival theme or Schmerbach’s place on this named regional route is the deciding factor. The route is a distinct aspect of the town, not an explanation for its fountain or charcoal-burning traditions.

More Cultural Highlights in Waltershausen

Those looking beyond Schmerbach to Waltershausen will find more cultural and historical highlights in Schnepfenthal. The GutsMuths Memorial Hall in Schnepfenthal is a venue for sport and culture. It presents information about history, nature, GutsMuths and the Rennsteiglauf, and has established itself as a gallery with special exhibitions. Outside the hall, information panels about GutsMuths and his pupils stand alongside trees from every continent. Schnepfenthal’s attractions also include the historic cemetery in Hardt, an old manor house and the Salzmannschule Gymnasium.

In Waltershausen itself, the banqueting hall at Tenneberg Castle dates from 1719. It is one of the castle’s three surviving Baroque rooms and features a ceiling painting by Johann Heinrich Ritter, a court painter from Thuringia. The town church “Zur Gotteshilfe” also makes its own architectural statement: it is considered Thuringia’s first large Baroque central-plan church and a precursor to Dresden’s Frauenkirche in its floor plan and construction. Its organ has three manuals, 53 sounding stops and 2,806 pipes. These Waltershausen highlights add to the picture of Schmerbach without replacing its own fountain and festival traditions.

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