Curated Itinerary
Erzgebirge / Krušnohoří: the Ore Mountains Mining Route
Across the Ore Mountains in seven stops: Freiberg’s silver capital, Annaberg’s Gothic churches, Seiffen’s toy villages and Bohemia’s Jáchymov, where the dollar got its name.
This itinerary crosses the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, inscribed by UNESCO in 2019 as a single landscape on both sides of the German–Czech ridge. Seven stops follow the ore through eight centuries: Freiberg’s silver and its mining academy, the boom-town churches of Annaberg, the water-powered Frohnauer Hammer, Marienberg’s Renaissance grid, Seiffen’s wooden-toy afterlife, Jáchymov’s silver-to-uranium arc, and the medieval tin terraces of Krupka.
The order is the ore’s own chronology — discovery, boom, refinement, decline and consequence — and it happens to make a clean west-to-east drive along the ridge. The border is crossed once and barely noticed; the listing exists precisely because the mountain never observed it.
Three days by car cover the route from Dresden or Prague. Book at least one underground tour, and if you can choose the season, choose Advent: the region’s Christmas traditions are mining festivals that never stopped.
Before you go
A word from your host
Go underground at least once — the region only makes sense from below. And if you have any freedom in the calendar, come in Advent: the candle arches in the windows are mine entrances, and the whole ridge remembers where its winters came from.
Getting around
A car and three days cover the ridge from Dresden or Prague; the border crossing is unmarked. Show mines run guided tours most of the year — carry a layer, it is eight degrees down there in any season.
Step by step
Download for tour navigation
GPX for Garmin / Komoot / OsmAnd. KML for Google Earth and Maps.