The Betteleiche
roughly 600 to 800 yearsOak
Monks are said to have cut a hollow into this oak so that the alms would stay dry. From 1442 to 1525 a Franciscan mendicant house stood at nearby Ihlefeld, an annex of the St Catherine's monastery at Eisenach, and travellers crossing the forest left coins and prayer requests for the friars at the tree rather than at the door. The name stuck: Betteleiche, the begging oak. What people walk in to see now is the shape. The trunk stands as two shells that fuse again about four metres up, a gateway you can step through, and centuries of weather have widened the gap. The tree is 13 metres tall, short for an oak of this weight, and about 5.9 metres round at a metre above the ground, though one summary puts it nearer 5.6. Sources agree on 600 to 800 years, and none of them cored it to find out. It is the symbol of Nationalpark Hainich, with a waymarked trail named after it, the Betteleichenweg, and the Rennstieg and Hainichlandweg crossing at the same point. Reaching it means 45 minutes of walking or more from the nearest trailhead, in whatever the weather is doing. Which oak it is remains open: the sources say only Eiche, sessile or pedunculate unsettled. If you know, tell us.
The button above opens directions in your maps app. No rail or bus stop nearby; reached on foot from national park trailheads near Kammerforst or Weberstedt, typically 45 minutes to over an hour of walking depending on the trailhead. Not a public-transport day trip; visitors normally drive to a trailhead car park and walk in.
- Species
- Oak (Quercus sp.)
- Age estimate
- roughly 600 to 800 years
- Location
- At the crossing of the Rennstieg and the Hohe Strasse near Ihlefeld, Nationalpark Hainich, Thuringia (Nationalpark Hainich (Kammerforst/Muehlhausen area))
- Access
- Free. Inside Nationalpark Hainich, reached by several waymarked hiking trails including the dedicated Betteleichenweg, plus the Waagebalkenweg, Hainichlandweg and Rennstieg long-distance trails. No ticket or booking needed, but it is a walk-in forest destination rather than a roadside stop.
- Getting there
- No rail or bus stop nearby; reached on foot from national park trailheads near Kammerforst or Weberstedt, typically 45 minutes to over an hour of walking depending on the trailhead. Not a public-transport day trip; visitors normally drive to a trailhead car park and walk in.
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