Curated Itinerary
Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests: a European Old-Growth Route
Eleven old-growth beech forests in one European route: Sonian at Brussels’ edge, Germany’s national parks, the Carpathian tripoint and the Balkan ridges of the UNESCO listing.
Take this route into Google Maps
From Sonian Forest to Central Balkan National Park, in the order we curated them.
➤ Open the stops in Google MapsThese places are spread over thousands of kilometres, and Google will not always join them into one route. It opens with the stops loaded in our order: from there pick two that are close to each other, choose how you travel, and add places of your own. For a single leg, the directions on each stop's own page work better.
This itinerary crosses the most fragmented World Heritage property in Europe: the ancient and primeval beech forests inscribed from 2007 onwards across eighteen countries. Eleven visitable components make up the route, from the Sonian Forest at the tram-line edge of Brussels, through Germany’s five-forest set, to the Carpathian core on the Polish–Slovak–Ukrainian tripoint and the Balkan ridges of Croatia, Montenegro and Bulgaria.
What connects the stops is a species and a process: the beech’s postglacial spread across the continent, preserved in fragments where the axe never quite arrived. Each forest is one sentence of that story, which is why UNESCO insisted they be listed together or not at all.
Treat the route as a menu — two or three forests per trip. Aim for May’s green or October’s copper, and keep to marked trails: in the strict reserves the rule is law, and everywhere it is the reason these woods still qualify as primeval.
Read the full story of this route in the CHO Magazine →
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A word from your host
Pick two forests, not eleven. Walk slowly, look up as much as ahead, and go in May or mid-October when the canopy does the performing. The point of these woods is what has not happened in them for four hundred years.
Getting around
Sonian is a Brussels tram ride; the German parks need a car between rail towns; the Carpathian tripoint is a walking region with border formalities to check; the Balkan parks pair with Adriatic or Sofia itineraries. Marked trails only in the strict reserves.
Step by step
Sonian Forest
Ancient beech forest spanning three Belgian regions at Brussels's edge, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its unbroken ecological record…
Kellerwald-Edersee National Park
A UNESCO-protected beech forest in northern Hesse preserving 12,000 years of European woodland ecology and climate history.
Hainich National Park
Germany's thirteenth national park, established in 1997 to protect an ancient beech forest.
Jasmund National Park
Germany's smallest national park protects dramatic white chalk cliffs rising 118 metres above the Baltic and ancient beech forests designated UNESCO…
Müritz National Park
A vast lakeland wilderness in northeastern Germany where ancient beech forests preserve Europe's ecological memory since the Ice Age, designated a UNESCO…
Bieszczady National Park
Poland's third-largest national park preserves ancient beech forests in the Carpathians, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for their exceptional…
Poloniny National Park
A wilderness reserve in Slovakia's Eastern Carpathians protecting ancient beech forests across the Polish and Ukrainian borders, with areas designated…
Carpathian Biosphere Reserve
A vast protected landscape of ancient beech forests in the eastern Ukrainian Carpathians, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its primeval…
Paklenica
Two dramatic limestone canyons in Croatia's Velebit mountain attract climbers and hikers to one of the Adriatic's most striking natural landscapes.
Biogradska Gora
Biogradska Gora is a primeval temperate forest in Montenegro, preserved as a national park and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve amid glacial lakes and mountain ridges.
Central Balkan National Park
Bulgaria's third-largest protected territory spans the central Balkan Mountains across 716.69 km², from 550 m to Botev Peak at 2,376 m, encompassing nine…
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🔒 The walk and the notes are open to everyone on this page. The files to take with you — the stop list as a PDF, and the GPX and KML tracks for your phone — come with a CHO account, and the free one includes them.
Walk it with the navigator on
These places are spread over thousands of kilometres, and Google will not always join them into one route. It opens with the stops loaded in our order: from there pick two that are close to each other, choose how you travel, and add places of your own. For a single leg, the directions on each stop's own page work better.