Altranft and Surroundings - Industrial Culture in the Oderbruch

53,00 km
Start: At the train station 16259 Bad Freienwalde
Destination: Am Bahnhof 16259 Bad Freienwalde

The Oderbruch - a monument to industrial culture? Absolutely, because this agricultural landscape is the result of a great engineering feat that began in the 18th century and continues to the present day. This resulted in a water system of pumping stations, receiving watercourses and dikes that can be described as giant landscape machines. The tour leads through the northern part of this cultural landscape, which was awarded the European Heritage Label in 2022.

Start / Finish: Bad Freienwalde train station
Length / Duration: approximately 53 kilometers / 4,5 hours
Arrival:

Car + bike: B167, B158, parking spaces at Bad Freienwalde train station and in the surrounding streets (parking meter)
Train + bike: Bad Freienwalde train station RB 60, E-Bike charging station at the station

The tour is also suitable for cargo and hand bikes as well as wheelchair cyclists. (At Altreetz the ground is poor for about 200 m.)

On a discovery tour - let's go!
The bike tour begins at Bad Freienwalde train station. From there, turn left into Karl-Marx-Straße. The first stop is one of Brandenburg's oldest museums - the Oderland Museum. With many exciting exhibits, you can immerse yourself in the history of the Oderbruch and the town of Bad Freienwalde.
A few hundred meters further along Königstraße, it is worth taking a detour to the right-hand side to the Freienwalde Castle. It was built in 1798/99 and served as the widow's residence of the Prussian Queen Friederike Luise. Today it is a memorial to the industrialist, writer and politician Walther Rathenau.

The route continues along Frankfurter Strasse to Schlossstrasse, where the Oderbruch Museum Altranft is located on the left, a former manor house that is now also known as Altranft Castle. The former economic power of the manor village of Altranft can be felt on the large village green. Through the castle park you reach the exhibition rooms in which the Oderbruch is presented as a European cultural heritage. The drainage of the quarry was planned from Altranft.

If you continue straight on the main road you will reach Rathsdorf. Here it is worth visiting the stork museum and the one-kilometer-long stork educational trail.
Continuing towards Wriezen, after crossing the main road, an unpaved cycle path leads to the left. A large game reserve is of interest here.

Wriezen - the gateway to the Oderbruch
The town of Wriezen lost its fishing grounds and direct access to the Oder due to Prussian land improvement. In the 19th century, attempts were made to catch up with industrialization by expanding the moat and building a harbor basin. A lime kiln was built at the Old Harbor in 1860, and its towers and the factory owner's villa still bear witness to the former prosperity.

Now, with a tailwind, you head straight towards the Oder on the Oderbruch Railway cycle path. Here you pass the village of Neulietzegöricke, the oldest colonist village in the Oderbruch. In 1747, the village green was dug deeper to create higher building sites for the houses. The farms of the large, medium and small colonists are connected in an exemplary way to form a village structure.

On the way to Zollbrücke you pass one of the 35 pumping stations in the Oderbruch, which are used to drain the adjacent fields. The four propeller pumps at the Mahlbusen create a receiving waterway into the Mucker, an old arm of the Oder.

Once you arrive in Zollbrücke, you will be treated to an impressive view over the Oder. The old bridge was destroyed several times by ice and replaced by a ferry. A gap in the dike, which was closed during high water, allowed carts to reach the ferry.

The Bienenwerder Europa Bridge
Now you can first enjoy the ride on the dike to the Zäckerick/Altrüdnitz railway bridge. It was part of the Wriezen-Jädickendorf (Godków) railway line, which opened in 1892, and was a huge structure: 661,5 m long, with a 113 m long intermediate dam. Since 1930 it has served as a road crossing, and a new railway bridge was built right next to it. When the Wehrmacht retreated in 1945, both bridges were blown up. The newer bridge was repaired for military purposes in 1955. After its renovation, it was opened to cyclists and hikers in 2022 as the Bienenwerder Europa Bridge. A detour to the other side of the river is worthwhile here.

Further along the dike you come to the “Spitz”. For a long time, fish ponds were operated here and fishermen offered fresh smoked fish. Today only traces remain of what was once the most important form of economy in the Oderbruch.

If you follow the cycle path further towards Hohenwutzen, the enormous curvature of the dyke becomes visible. In fact, this section is called Krummer Ort. For the artificial Oder bed, which was dug out in 1747 over 1,7 kilometers towards Hohensaaten, the shallowest spot was chosen - after all, 16-meter-high layers of sand. During the flood of the century in 1997, a dangerous embankment collapsed at dyke kilometer 70,4, which was stabilized through the joint efforts of the German army and the Oderbruch residents, the so-called "Miracle of Hohenwutzen."

At this point, turn left into the village of Hohenwutzen and continue straight ahead.
On the Chausseestraße you reach the Altglietzen ring kiln, built in 1878, which was revolutionary at the time and is still well preserved today. Its construction enabled a continuous firing process for bricks, lime and gypsum. The rich clay deposits along the Thorn-Eberswalder glacial valley were used.

Shortly before the large intersection, turn left again and keep right in the district of Gabow to get to Neutornow. The church was built in 1770 for 36 settled colonists. Behind it is the grave of Theodor Fontane's father, Louis Henri Fontane, who spent the last years of his life in Schiffmühle. Theodor visited his father there several times.

In Schiffmühle you can visit the former residential building, which is now a museum. Before that you pass the Neutornow pumping station, which was built in 1895 and is the most powerful of its kind in Brandenburg. It is only used for a few weeks a year, when the water level in the Stromoder is so high that it would back up into the Bruch. The pumping station is equipped with three huge centrifugal pumps.

The cycle path next to the main road leads back to Bad Freienwalde, where one last example of industrial culture awaits. Slightly hidden behind the train station, a footpath leads to the Alttornow flood pumping station.

The most important places on the route: