Weißer Stein

Weißer Stein is a hill fifty-five metres higher than the surrounding Odenwald forest, standing nine kilometres north-east of Heidelberg. The hilltop carries a twenty-metre lookout tower built in 1906 by local members of the Odenwald Club. From the platform visitors look south-west over the Rhine plain to the Melibokus, the highest point of the Odenwald, and to the Katzenbuckel, the Tromm and the Neunkircher Höhe. The tower is not alone on the summit. Beside it stands a tall broadcast tower owned by Deutsche Telekom, its antenna mast reaching one hundred and eight metres into the sky. A short walk from the lookout is the Höhengaststätte Weißer Stein, a tavern with a beer garden where walkers can rest and eat. Paths wind through beech and oak woods to the open summit. The lookout tower’s iron steps creak under visitors’ feet, and the broadcast tower hums faintly in the background. On clear days the view stretches to the Pfälzerwald and the Black Forest. The contrast between the old iron tower and the modern steel mast shows how one place can hold both past and present.