Reinbek Castle, museums with their own specialities and trails into the Sachsenwald give Reinbek a character shaped by both culture and landscape. Choosing the town as your base lets you combine architectural history, art and walks in the castle park with hiking and cycling tours in the wider surrounding area. Two points of reference are useful when planning: the edge of the Sachsenwald reaches into the town centre, while the Stormarn Tour 22 is a 31-kilometre cycling route that is not signposted locally.
Castle, museums and architectural history
Reinbek Castle is a Dutch Renaissance building, constructed between 1572 and 1576. Its restored rooms and painted wooden ceilings provide a setting for cultural events, exhibitions, fairs and other public programmes. If you have a particular event in mind, check the event dates before your trip. This helps you distinguish an interest in the architecture and interiors from planning around a specific cultural event.
The Rade Museum at Reinbek Castle displays more than 1,000 exhibits in a Wilhelminian-era villa opposite the castle. Its main focuses include German and international naĂŻve painting, as well as African folk art. The collection of writer and ethnologist Rolf Italiaander includes pictures, statues and ceramics from his travels. The castle and museum thus offer different cultural highlights: Renaissance architecture and a cultural programme on the one hand, and a collection centred on artistic and travel-related themes on the other.
The Maria Magdalene Church represents another architectural era: it was built in 1901 in the Gothic Revival style and given its name in 1969. The dates help distinguish the church’s history from the castle’s construction, which began more than three centuries earlier.
Castle park, Sachsenwald and early history
Reinbek Castle Park offers a setting for walks, with broad tree canopies, sightlines and reflections in the MĂĽhlenteich pond. Its valuable collection of old trees includes small-leaved lime, large-leaved lime, Hungarian silver lime, as well as English, sessile and red oaks. A walk through the park brings both the different tree species and the views across the water into focus.
The edge of the Sachsenwald reaches into Reinbek town centre and can be reached on foot from the S-Bahn station. The wider Sachsenwald and Stormarn landscape also provides a setting for hikes and cycling tours starting in Reinbek. This puts park paths and activities in the wider countryside side by side as different options, without requiring you to plan a long tour.
Those interested in traces of early history can find almost 20 well-preserved Bronze Age burial mounds and a Neolithic long barrow along the Oher Gräberfeld-Weg trail. Reinbek also has 47 prehistoric burial mounds under heritage protection. The Gothic Revival church, Renaissance castle and burial grounds thus offer different ways to explore the history of the town and its surroundings.
Plan your cycling tour and journey
The Stormarn Tour 22 starts at Reinbek S-Bahn station and is 31 kilometres long. Along the way, it offers views of the landscape in the Bille valley and around Klingeberg. As the route is not signposted locally, check its course before setting off. The return leg follows the Bille; swimming is possible at the Tonteich pond. The Tonteich lies outside Reinbek in nearby Wohltorf—a useful distinction when dividing your time between Reinbek and the surrounding area.
Reinbek is connected to Hamburg by the Hamburg–Berlin railway line and frequent S-Bahn services; five HVV bus routes supplement local transport. S2/S7 is listed as the S-Bahn connection towards Aumühle. Reinbek is also accessible via the B5 and the A24 and A1 motorways. Check connections and traffic before setting off to make sure your journey suits your chosen route.
Discover more destinations: Oststeinbek, Bargfeld-Stegen, Nienwohld, Klein Wesenberg, Tangstedt, Ahrensburg, TravenbrĂĽck, Hammoor
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