about Bad Orb

BAD ORB is part of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis And is surrounded by the idyllic Spessart forests, which are very beautiful natural surroundings with its meadows and fields the spa town a special charisma, especially in spring and autumn. The many mineral springs and baths as well as the spa facilities are a special trademark the city. Orb was a rich city for centuries because of salt extraction from the sources of the springs. The 155 m long graduation mill, was used for salt production: The brine trickled over The blackthorn was thickened (graded) with the help of wind and sun by natural evaporation and purified of earthy constituents that petrify around the thorn. The brine went up to ten times over the graduation towers before it came into the Sudpfanne. The thickening served to save fuel wood; the brine cleaning to make you beautiful white Got salt. Today, the graduation tower is an outdoor inhalatory. Due to the evaporative cooling and the salt crystals in the air, a small climate forms around the graduation mill, similar to the sea beach. In operation from Sunday to early spring to about November, when frost is not in operation. Only in 18./19. Century fell the revenue because of emerging competition through the rock salt production away. In 1837 the first brine bath house was opened. In 1899, the salt production was finally stopped and with the expansion to started modern spa. The state recognition for the spa took place in 1909. Today's importance gained Bad Orb by his excellent healing results and by the creation modern cultural and recreational facilities since 1950. There were once ten of the salt works / graduation house but only one has survived through the war, but the also especially for asthma, runny nose, hoarseness and pollen allergies sick to promise relief.

The first written mention of the name Orb was in 1059 in a boundary description of the Wildbannes for the monastery Fulda, first mention of the place and the salt springs 1064th Als Town in the possession of the Elector of Mainz We Orb first mentioned in documents in 1292. Later Orb was fief of the lords of Büdingen, after their extinction in 1274 it fell to the lords of Trimberg and Brauneck. From these Kurmainz acquired the individual shares between 1313 and 1328. From 1428 to 1564 pledged to Hanau, 1649 again Mainzisch, again pledged between 1665 and 1721. For centuries, several knight dynasties had possessions in Orb. In 1803 Orb came to the Principality of Aschaffenburg, from 1810 to 1813 trainee to the Grand Duchy Frankfurt and from 1814 Bavarian. The Bavarian period ended in 1867, when Orb was ceded to Prussia. Orb may officially call itself a "bath" for 100 years. The title that the Prussian government on April 8, 1909 certified, but adorned years before the first postcards from the Spessart. And the city celebrated its 150th spa anniversary in 1987. Occasion: the opening of the first "Soolbadanstalt" in June 1837 by the pharmacist Franz Leopold Koch. Of a significant industry, the drug administration was there but still decades away. This gradually changed at the dawn of the 20th century, when the first conditions for recovery were created.

On 1 December 1898 the Küppelsmühle closed with the AOK Frankfurt one of the first rehabilitation contracts of the German social security. 1899 brought nine Frankfurt companies and business people, including Bankhaus Bethmann and the Commerz- and Discontobank, almost a million gold marks for Bad Orb GmbH. Then you ripped the whole Salinenbetriebshof except the graduation house number X from and put on the grounds of the spa park in its present form. Landscape architects were the brothers Siesmayer, to whose references the Frankfurt Palmengarten or the Kurpark in Homburg belonged. On May 18, 1900 opened the expensive three million Goldmark spa hotel with 80 rooms. For electric light, central heating, elevator and telephone was built especially a power and water works. In the city area electricity and water connection were still foreign. The investors the health resort did not deliver the hoped-for return. Although Orb was also connected to the railway network on May 23, 1901, the hoped-for stream of visitors initially remained. 1903 were 2862 Spa guests counted. Since the financiers had already withdrawn with high losses from society. In December 1903, the doctor and later spa director Franz-Josef took over Scherf with the Sanitätsrat Dr. med. Hufnagel and the founder of the Küppel Mill Clinic, Heinrich Freund, the lurching bathing establishment and created more facilities. Well realized as well Locals the future perspective and built private houses and pensions. In 1913, the city took over from the proceeds of forest sales and the compulsory sale of the crossroads, the imperial military training ground became the majority of society.

The way to the well-known and phased private bath of Germany was still far away. War, inflation and the global economic crisis delayed the heyday. First as health insurance and pension funds made it possible for the broader strata to stay in the spa, several weeks of spa treatment and the administration of natural remedies became a business. In the 50s, In the 60s and 70s, the number of overnight stays rose to 1.5 million per year. The 80s reversed the trend again. Bad Orb also has a well-preserved old town with many half-timbered houses and the Stadtbefestigung (city wall) which were partly renovated.

The Spessart:
The SPESSART is a low mountain range in western Germany. The name derives etymologically from woodpecker and Hardt "mountain forest" ago, thus stands for "Spechtswald".

Population
The inhabitants of the Spessart are Franconians, who merged after their advance from the Rhine to the east with the originally resident Alemanni. Immigrated Slavs left completely in the Frankish tribe.

General
The Spessart is a low mountain range in western Central Europe. The woodpecker has given the Spessart (Spessart, in the Nibelungenlied Spechteshart, "Woodpecker") his name. Even today, the black woodpecker serves as a symbol animal of the region. The Spessart is one of the currently 93 nature parks in Germany. It forms the largest coherent mixed-leave forest area in Germany. Its extreme branches extend to Hanau, Schlüchtern and Sinntal. It covers an area of ​​2440 km², of which Bayern has 1.710 km², to Hesse 730 km². The main mass of the Spessart consists of granite, gneiss and mica schist with lurking red and spotted sandstone and Buntsandstein. geological seen the Spessart is a fairly young mountains. The basement formed crystalline rocks 500 to 700 million years ago, which is evident in the northwestern Spessart. The comings and goings of the sea left deposits up to 200 million years ago, which today form the up to 400 m thick cover of bunter sandstone. environmental influences and erosion gave the Spessart its present appearance with plateau and deeply cut valleys. The clay and loam layers prevent rapid infiltration of the water and make the Spessart a source-rich low mountain range. While nutrient-poor soil predominates in the interior, the soils are more fertile on the outskirts to the Main. Main separates the Spessart in the east from the Fränkische Platte and in the south from the Odenwald. The Spessart is in the north by the Kinzig vom Vogelsberg and in the northeast by the sense of the Rhön divorced. The outer hem along the Main, especially in the west, is called a Vorspessart. The inner, consisting of densely merging mountains forest mountains, which has no broad mountain terrain, is called Hochspessart. The plateau-like depression to Kinzig and to Kahl am Main is the Hinterspessart. The Hinterspessart also includes the so-called Orber Reisig, several oak-covered hills that extend to the town of Bad Orb. The historical and real background of the Grimm fairytale Snow White is also settled in the Spessart.

History
The Spessart has a varied history behind it. The earliest traces of human settlement date back to the Bronze Age (about 1800 to 750 BC). At the southern edge The Spessart are settlements from the time of the Halsstatt (about 750 to 450 BC) and by invading Celts from the La Tine Period (about 450 to 50 BC) to prove. Between about 80 to 260 AD is the west of the Spessart frontier of the Roman Empire. During this time strategically important castles arose on the Main (in Miltenberg, Obernburg, Hanau etc.). In the 3rd century, Burgundians invaded and from the 5th century the Alemanni returning from the south invaded, and Aschaffenburg, Gemünden and Lohr were reckoned among their foundations are. The Alemanni were absorbed in the 6th century by the invading Franks from the west. From this development, the actual Spessart remained untouched, an impenetrable Forest area without settlement. Under the Frankish king Charlemagne (747-814, emperor since December 25, 800), the Spessart royal bann forest was, thus, intended only for hunting.

With the arrival of Christianity, the woodland came into the possession of monasteries and monasteries such as the Benedictine abbeys Neustadt am Main, Seligenstadt and Amorbach and the Augustinerprobstei Triefenstein, who, as advanced bastions of the ecclesiastical centers of Mainz and Würzburg, provided cultural and economic development work. Emperor Otto II gave the Mainz Archbishop Willigis large parts of the Spessart. As a result, the Mainz archbishops were the most important sovereigns in the Spessart for centuries. Even among them remained the core of the Spessart still imperial ban forest. Only from the 12th and 13th century did they tolerate a controlled settlement of the Spessart. The Spessart was always governed from the outside. That's how he became dominated by the Archbishopric of Mainz, the Bishopric of Würzburg and several other earl families. An independent development took the Free imperial city Gelnhausen. The political Fragmentation of the Spessart had until the eve of significant territorial changes in the wake of the wars against the revolutionary or Napoleonic France (1792 to 1813/1815) and the accompanying secularization of spiritual possessions (1803) and mediatization (1803 to 1806). Furthermore, it favored this political fragmentation without cross-border prosecution the emergence of robber gangs, which have been documented since at least the beginning of the 19th century. In the time of change around the collapse The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (1801 to 1806) saw the robber bans in the Spessart and in the rest of Germany a final climax. After reorganization of the territories until 1815 and with more effective administrations the robber problem was corrected in a very short time. In the course of the 1st Coalition War Mainz was in 1792 by French revolutionary troops occupied. The Electorate of Mainz effectively ceased to exist. With the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 25 February 1803 and the subsequent territorial land consolidation The Electorate of Mainz and the Hochstift Würzburg finally ended. As a result, much of the Spessart came to the newly founded Principality of Aschaffenburg under Karl Theodor von Dahlberg. From February 16, 1810, the Principality of Aschaffenburg was then joined together with other territories to the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt under Karl Theodor von Dahlberg. After the end The Napoleonic Wars (1813/1815) and the dissolution of the central administration for the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt on June 26, 1814 falls Aschaffenburg and the surrounding area in the context of the negotiations the Congress of Vienna to the Kingdom of Bavaria. The former tithe Somborn, owned by the Counts of Hanau and earlier fell to the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, remained Hessian and came into possession of Prussia in 1866.

But even today the Spessart is divided into four districts in two federal states. Bavaria: Aschaffenburg, Miltenberg and Main-Spessart. Hesse: Main-Kinzig-Kreis.

Economy
The Spessart had next to a low-yield agriculture on resources such as wood, hydropower, salt, ores and minerals. These factors formed the basis for Köhler, Potters, iron hammers and mines. 1795 bought Georg Ludwig Rexroth the hell hammer in the Elsavatal and produced iron articles for agriculture and handicraft. After the move to Lohr developed from it a world enterprise for hydraulics, which merged in the today's Bosch Rexroth AG. The glass products and mirrors from Spessarter glassworks became European-wide distributed. Even today, a glassworks is in operation in Lohr. The Spessart was permeated by a variety of trade routes, from which the landlords obtained customs revenue. The many churches and monasteries, castles and palaces testify to prosperous times.

The infamous Frammersbach wagoners moved from here through Europe. With the spread of the railways and the improvement of river navigation since the middle of the 19th century. However, in the 20th century the guild of carters went down economically. Over the centuries, the Spessart was also different wooded. Already with the salt production and the associated with boiling process (evaporation of the sole by firing) and by operating the numerous iron hammers and the blossoming glass industry in the 18th and 19th centuries and the associated high charcoal consumption, the wooded areas decreased extremely quickly. For this reason, since the 18th century, a systematic reforestation operated. With the decline of the iron and glass industry in the late 19th century and the decline in agricultural use of the lower and middle slopes since the middle of the 20th century. In the 19th century, the forest has recaptured large parts of the Spessart. With the industrial revolution from the middle of the 19th century most of the low mountain ranges came economically behind. Improved and cheaper transport routes allowed the sale of cheaper goods from the major centers to the most remote corners. The Spessart impoverished. Still at the beginning In the 20th century the Spessart, together with the Rhön and the Bavarian Forest, were the poor kitchens of Bavaria. The triad forest, poverty and Spessarträuber is liable in the consciousness of humans although this was only a short phase in the ups and downs of development.

The Spessarträuber fairytale landscape or robber forest?
The fairytale has always had a home in Spessart. It was not so much the narrative's desire to write but, above all, the Spessart farmers, who were not wealthy in their villages knew and therefore fictitious figures fetched in the barren parlors, when the evenings were long and the forest and field work required no more use. The sad life the peasant changed into the stories of happy joy of existence. The exciting stories of robbers, drovers and mail carriers were not fictitious reports, but true Events that have often been decorated with interesting details in the taverns and post offices. But posterity is the robbers and their misdeeds only the novels and fairy tales of the literati remained known.

"In the forest gloomy reasons, hidden deep in the caves ..." Christian August Vulpius, Goethe's not unjustly forgotten brother-in-law, wrote in 1798 the most successful robber barons his time, the Rinaldo Rinaldini. When Johannes Bückler (aka Schinderhannes) met the hatchet in Mainz in 1803, a cheerful robber romance flourished in the German reading rooms. Schiller was her involuntary father. With his Karl Moor from the play "The Robbers" from 1781 no robber captain came by, who wanted to become something with the public. Wilhelm Hauff stopped The same goes for the fairy tale "The Tavern in the Spessart" of 1826. That "handsome, well-dressed man of about thirty-six years," who shortly after midnight A lonely tavern in the Spessart enters to rob the Countess, we are immediately sympathetic. He has manners, he apologizes: "Do not see a common thief in me, no one Kehlabschneider. I am an unfortunate man, forced by adverse circumstances to this life. "Well spoken, man, so the people love their robbers! Dirt at the stick, but noble in the mind. Wilhelm Hauff is the inventor of the most beautiful and best robber captain: "I found a wondrous forest, a tavern so right to linger and dream, and in the The stories of the travel companions haunted wild daring fellows, who made me curious and startled. "When the young poet traveled to Spessart in 1826, it was robbery long gone. But since Hauff every child knows: Spessartwald = robber forest. Although the truth fades before the art. The real robbers probably did not understand each other to read and did not know what that was: robber romance. A miserable life and a miserable death.

The Spessart Streets
The old streets, which used to be important traffic routes in the Middle Ages, are meaningless today. The Spessart as well as the adjacent regions Odenwald, Wetterau, Büdinger Wald, Vogelsberg and Rhön was feared by the travelers in the late 18th and early 19th century. Who at that time on the poorly ordered roads in carriages, on wagons or too Was on the move, the driven rather than the desire to travel rather than economic or professional needs. Merchants from Nuremberg or Schweinfurt, for example, brought her Merchandise for the spring and autumn fair in Frankfurt and returned with raw materials, craft tradesmen on the roll sought new masters, couriers brought on horseback dispatches, the Thurn and Taxis stagecoaches drove to the post offices, peddlers and peddlers wandered through the countryside and offered their goods in the villages. In short: There was more activity Traffic on the numerous trade routes and military roads and their up and downs in the Spessart: To call here would be the Birkenhainer road (Hanau-Gemünden), the donkey trail (Schlüchtern-Rohrbrunn-Miltenberg), the Kauffahrteistraße (Wirtheim-Wiesen-Lohr), the Lohrer road (Aschaffenburg-Rothenbuch-Lohr) or the Alte Poststraße (Nuremberg-Würzburg-Aschaffenburg-Frankfurt), later also called Spessarter Chaussee. The movement of goods, money, and well-heeled people through the forest with no beginning or end but also a lot of light-shy rabble. The fear of crossing this dangerous landscape is reflected in that legendary prayer of a Nuremberg Kaufmanns (around 1800), which is still rumored today: "Dear God, you helped me out of the womb, you will also help me through the Spessart!"

The Old Post Road
The Alte Poststraße, later also called Spessarter Chaussee, is still preserved in its original form and tells the stories of post riders, grooms, horse-riding Messengers and driving posts. The road leads through the middle of the Spessart, was the shortest connection between Frankfurt and Würzburg and therefore suitable as a postal route. The street, once an arduous way, originated at the beginning of the 17th century.

When the road was reasonably in order, Imperial mail carriers took over the courier service. They were brave guys who did not care who was after them. you had to deal with the rabble of the street, but did not surrender. The postal route from Frankfurt to Aschaffenburg and from here via Rohrbrunn, from 1790 also over Hessenthal (today part of Mespelbrunn), where each was a horse exchange station, to Würzburg and Nuremberg remained.

The Birkenhainer Street
It moves from the Frankfurt area up to the watershed between Kinzig and Kahl, climbs from Flörsbach and Lohrhaupten to the old customs house Bayerische Schanz and winds its way from the Hermannkoppe winding down to Gemünden. This street was once called Via exercitalis; it was a kingdom, lord, and royal road, and it served the lords and the servants. On it the Elector of Mainz and the counts of Hanau moved into their hunting grounds. But even merchants who shied the detour on the Maintalstraße dared, usually with escort on the old trade route to get from Frankfurt and Hanau to Gemünden on the Main and on to Würzburg and Nuremberg.

The Eselsweg
On Greifsberg, not far from the Bavarian-Hessian border, another famous Spessartweg crosses Birkenhainer Straße. It is the donkey path the road of white gold. The donkey path starts at Schlüchtern in Kinzigtal and leads to Miltenberg. As Via asinina, this path has gone down in history. The donkeys on the way Salt of the Orb saline brought to the southern kurmainzischen places, helped the road to their name. The road touches especially beautiful forest areas, strips Rothenbuch and Weibersbrunn, crosses the street Aschaffenburg-Lohr at Echterspfahl, meanders through the Rohrbrunner Forst down to Schollbrunn and reaches the Main near Miltenberg. The path leads at an altitude of 400 to 500 meters almost exclusively through dense deciduous forest and extends 111 km. The donkey way had neither as army nor as convoy road big meaning. There were no soldiers marching on him; He was out of the itineraries of the merchants who wanted to go to the Frankfurt Fair. Who from the Kinzigtal, from the Vogelsberg or from the Rhön wanted to the south, preferred other routes that were less dangerous and were not so far away in the landscape..

So the donkey way remained reserved especially for those who had the courage enough to use the lonely roads. Those were the Frammersbacher carters, the goods traffic (before salt and glass products) from north to south, and which were also negotiated with the most daring journeymen. A carter did not make much trouble when he was a hindrance was put in the way. His hand was feared. The highwaymen knew this and all the other rabble, who regarded the road as open land. They did not like to lie down the "caretakers," as the waggoners were called, were let go. The donkey path owes its legends and the small glory that has survived the centuries.

Robbery with far-reaching Consequences
On the upper mountain road between Laudenbach and Hemsbach in the night of May 1, 1811 a coach stopped and looted. Six robbers disguise her, throw the Coachmen from Bock and drag the travelers out of the cushions, two Swiss merchants who come from the Frankfurt Easter Fair. Easy game, no resistance, and still: one Robber loses his nerves. 45-year-old Jacob Rieder from Winterthur, father of six, is barbarically beaten down. He remains unconscious with multiple fractures on the skull Forest path lie. After the crime is discovered, he is rushed to the Heidelberg Hospital, where he dies four days later. The indignation is great. The Hessian and Baden Authorities angrily open up the mess against the gang of robbers, which has left only a few traces: a fireplace, a thrown away club, bloodied, a headscarf with the initials of the victim.

But there was not the slightest doubt where to look for the murderers. As always, all homeless vagabonds who were useless through the villages in the Odenwald were suspicious and Spessart moved. Just the dealers, jugglers, gypsies, Maulwurffänger, players, quacks, beggars and thieves, the ragamuffin of the street, now the hour of final extermination was predetermined. The criminal case Rieder came to the authorities thus not inconvenient. A welcome occasion the last big robber hunt on both banks of the Main, in the Spessart and in the Odenwaldeâ € œ. Raids, investigations, trials and scaffolding were the inevitable consequence. The evil prejudice soon confirmed. Among the first wanderers, who were hauled before the "embarrassing judge" in Darmstadt, was a certain Valentin Schmitt. Suspicious peasants had held him on the way to Aschaffenburg. Betray He had it by wanting to throw away his bundle and tear it out. The peasants thought the same: he has something to hide. Valentin Schmitt later gave in as the Written by Veit Krämer. In Heidelberg, where he was transferred for further interrogation, he confessed his involvement in the robbery and named the names of Accomplices. Soon they arrested about a hundred tramps, guilty or not. At that time it was not easy to establish their identity, that is to say their origin or their names experience; because they also knew each other often only by their nicknames. The Heidelberg City Director Dr. Pfister, who hastened during the examination, a book For example, with the title "Actual History of the Robber Robbers ...", it complained: "In people of this kind, who have no permanent place, daily in others Huts or Schopfen or live outdoors, it is very difficult to find any proof of their family relationships. "

Peter Petry (aka Schwarzer Peter), who was still a comrade of Johannes Bückler (aka Schinderhannes), had been taken prisoner, and the Orthweis had been unmasked, at that time the Spitzin was called and Beischläferin Georg Philipp Lang (aka Hölzerlips) was. Against the Spitzin was a death sentence, like the Imperial French Court over Rhine. Also the Hölzerlips had been caught in the meantime. He was not an uneducated head, of great strength, cruel, malicious, and irascible, and also a chief robber. Among the main robbers were also Philipp Friedrich Schütz (aka Manne-Friedrich), Andreas Petry (aka Köhler Andres) and Sebastian Lutz (aka Basti) counted. They were all at the Robbery in the night to 1 May 1811 been there. The Basti had broken through to Wertheim when he was picked up. He too, like the others, became in Heidelberg Chains laid. He made another desperate attempt to regain the freedom to run away from the executioner. He managed to release our chains from the cell rappel. Dressed only in a bare shirt, he went on the run. In front of the peasants he begged, he played the imbecile to explain his elevator. However in vain. He was arrested again in Fürth im Odenwald. The torture had already been abolished in those days. Confessions could no longer be forcibly extorted. However, it was legal to close a prisoner closely and more closely. That meant that the prisoners were sometimes locked up at Karger Kost in tight, drafty cold and damp holes for years. But strongest Burden in prison life continued to bring the interrogations. Even in the 19th century, the Inquirents could order the thumbscrews to find the truth. The Heidelberg City director dr. Pfister pursued with his early work the purpose "to inform the public of the procedure of these robbers, the still free members of the gang identified to make their by-catch easier and thus to increase public safety. "He said nothing about the conditions of detention and so one can only guess why Stephan Heusner (aka Langbeiniger Steffen) and several others hanged in jail.

Result of the robbery in the night of May 1, 1811 and the ensuing robber hunt was, inter alia, that four robbers sentenced to death and beheaded on July 31, 1812 in Heidelberg become. The Hölzerlips had been charged with two murders and 152 cases of robbery and street robbery. Together with the Hölzerlips lose Manne-Friedrich, Mathes Oesterlein (aka Krämer-Mathes) and Veit Krämer's head. The two accomplices, Basti and Köhlers Andres were due to their youthful age by the Grand Duke Charles of Baden (1786 to 1818) at the last minute on 31. Pardoned July 1812.

As the robber hunt came to an end, it was clearer. There was no large, organized band of robbers, neither in the Vogelsberg nor in the Spessart or in the Odenwald. Also no robber captain far and wide. It had to do with a lost bunch of stray gallows birds. They were either immigrant brats or "their own nationals, inhabitants of the next Places "that appeared as connoisseurs, thieves, and fences.Many plans were not made.The robbers formed changing groups.They stole the pewter jugs, the peasants the Jerky meat, the carter the goods. No thought of murder. But they were hardy and raw, and in the excitement they had a manslaughter.

The Historic Tavern in the Spessart
The location of Hauffs Wirtshaus was puzzled for a long time. What do you actually know about the literary-historical location of Hauff's tavern narrative? To the story to explain the tavern in the Spessart, one has to go back to the year 1615. At that time Lamoral I. Freiherr von Taxis (1557-1624), since 1611 Reich Generaloberpostmeister, directed one Postal route from Brussels via Würzburg to Prague. For the Spessart crossing he used an existing old street, which soon got the name Poststraße. This post road at that time led via Aschaffenburg, Bessenbach, Rohrbrunn to Esselbach and on to Würzburg and Nuremberg. Posthaltereien were then, inter alia, in Straßbessenbach and Rohrbrunn. The Kurmainzische Oberjäger Uzuber had received in 1688 the postal and customs rights and opened in Rohrbrunn a post office with affiliated economy. The Rohrbrunner Posthalterei was secured with an oak beam fence against robbers.

Between 1780 and 1790, the (old) post road was expanded. The new route, now also called Spessarter Chaussee, now ran directly above the hitherto off the route located Hessenthal (today part of Mespelbrunn). As the stagecoaches got better on the new Poststrasse, the Posthalterei in Straßbessenbach became superfluous, instead, a further post office was to be built further away from Aschaffenburg. In 1813, the innkeeper Franz Scherf from Bessenbach decided in Hessenthal to build a post office. Just as he had the building executed, it corresponds exactly to the description that Hauff used in his Das Wirtshaus in the Spessart. A long, but a very low house, a cart stood in front of it and next door in the stable you could hear horses neighing ". Of course, Scherf had also attached an economy to the post office. She called herself "Principality Aschaffenburg", but was soon called only the "post office", as it is still called today. For a long time it was believed that the right tavern stood in the Spessart in Rohrbrunn have. In fact, the Posthalterei Rohrbrunn had already been abolished in 1820, six years before Hauff's educational journey. The stagecoaches stopped in Rohrbrunn and Hauff - if he traveled through the Spessart - he will not have noticed this lonely place on his journey. That in Rohrbrunn the inn located from 1930 "tavern in the Spessart" called, can only be described as a good "publicity stunt". When Hauff was traveling in 1826, the Spessart route was one of the most famous and important post roads in Germany and The postal organization also required a stay in the Posthalterei Hessenthal. There in the restaurant Wilhelm Hauff, if he came through the Spessart, maybe the stories about drovers and mail riders, highwaymen and robbers, threatened stagecoaches and lonely taverns have heard. It is therefore quite realistic that "Gasthaus zur Post" in Hessenthal as the right "tavern in the Spessart" to designate.

Structures:
The most famous building in the Spessart is the castle Mespelbrunn, a romantic moated castle. It was the residence of the sex of the real, who in nearby Aschaffenburg with Administrative tasks of the Archbishopric of Mainz. Mespelbrunn is so remote that it never came to war-related damage or destruction. The castle is in today Property of the Counts of Ingelheim and partly inhabited, partly furnished as a museum.

The three-part gothic pilgrimage church Hessenthal contains a significant crucifixion group by Hans Backoffen, a lamentation of Christ and attributed to Tilman Riemenschneider a family epitaph of the real one of Mespelbrunn in the old pilgrimage chapel, which serves as a burial place.

The Carolingian Vierungskirche in Neustadt am Main. Built by Megingaud and consecrated in 781 by Charlemagne, Bishop Willibald from Eichstätt and Archbishop Lullus of Mainz.

The Luitpoldshöhe Castle was built in 1889 by Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria in Rohrbrunner Forst as a domicile for his hunting companies in Spessart. Later it was the seat of the Forstamtes Rohrbrunn. Since 1996 it is without use, its future is unclear. In Sommerkahl the mine Wilhelmine, a former copper mine can be visited.

Museums:
In Lohr am Main the Spessartmuseum is housed in the castle. The history and products of the Spessart, in particular glass and mirrors, as well as forging and foundry products. The formerly important importance of glassmaking in the Spessart is especially honored in Wertheim by a glass museum. The Lapidarium in Neustadt am Main, above the former chapter hall of the abbey church, testifies to the Carolingian past of the monastery Neustadt. Probably the most important piece is the so-called Gertraudenmantel dar. opening on request in the monastery or in the parish office. A representative illustration of the mineralogy and geology of Spessart can be found in the Natural History Museum Schönborner Hof in Aschaffenburg.

Hiking Trails:
The Spessart has been developed for many decades by marked hiking trails for hikers. Exceptionally old and probably over 2,000 years in use is the donkey trail, a so-called old road that leads across the main ridge of the Spessart and probably got its name from the donkey caravans of the Middle Ages. Today, the donkey trail is one with a black long-distance path marked on a white background, which crosses the Spessart almost without a local contact in a north-south direction (similar to the Rennsteig in the Thuringian Forest).

Almost equally well known is the Birkenhainer Straße, a medieval army and trade route between the Rhine and East Franconia. It connects Hanau with Gemünden am Main on a length of 71 km. Today, Birkenhainer Straße is a long-distance hiking trail marked with black on a white background.

The 1990 created Franconian red wine trail is particularly interesting for wine drinkers and is marketed intensively. It runs along the western edge of the Spessart along the Main Valley.

The Archaeological Spessart Project has created cultural hiking trails.