Bergstraße Route

The Bergstraße ("Mountain Road") is 80-kilometre-long (50 mi) ancient trade route in the south-west of Germany. The route and the area around it is a mountainous "theme route" running north–south along the western edge of the Odenwald forest in southern Hesse and northern Baden-Württemberg. The route passes through the Bergstraße administrative district, and independent viticultural regions of Hessische Bergstraße and Badische Bergstraße. Between the cities of Heidelberg and Weinheim the Upper Rhine Railway Company (OEG) tram route runs alongside.

The route goes almost straight from north to south at the spot where the Rhine lowlands meet the western edge of the Odenwald. The name comes from the road's route along the foot of the mountains, the Rhine lowlands once being too damp to build a road there.

The route mostly follows the modern B3 road. It begins in Darmstadt and, after passing through Eberstadt, splits into the "Old Bergstraße" and the "New Bergstraße", which goes somewhat further to the west. The two routes meet again at Zwingenberg.

In Weinheim-Lützelsachsen an old and a new Bergstraße once more form, the new one passing west of the old route as far as Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim, where the two meet once more. The route carrying on after the Neckar from Heidelberg to Wiesloch is still usually known as the Bergstraße, even though the type of country and climate typical of the Bergstraße is no longer as pronounced.

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