Experience industrial history at close quarters along the cycle path between Zeitz and Hohenmölsen.

Coal is by far the world's largest fossil energy resource. It has developed over many millions of years from plants that were exposed to high pressures and temperatures in deep layers of the earth. This process is called coalification and takes place in several stages. First peat is produced, then brown coal, then hard coal and finally anthracite. The mining areas for brown coal in the southeast of the Burgenland district belong to the Zeitz-Weissenfels lignite mining district. This area is characterised by the long tradition of mining, which began here more than 300 years ago. After the coal was initially mined underground, open-cast mining followed from the 1970s onwards.

Around the turn of the century, mining developed into a determining branch of industry for the region, with large underground and open-cast mines that shaped the landscape. At the same time, a broad industry of coal processing and refining developed, from briquette factories to smouldering plants and coal liquefaction plants. Each of the technical epochs of the lignite industry leaves its unmistakable mark.

The landscape between Zeitz, Teuchern, Hohenmölsen and the border to Saxony is characterised by mining with its manifold effects in the form of open-cast mining fields, dumps, residual holes, dumps, underground quarries and the remains of industrial plants.

Embark on a search for clues in a region that has changed and developed like no other in the last decades. Discover the material witnesses of the industrialisation of Central Germany and actively experience the mining history of the recarbo ERLEBNISREGION!