We therefore recommend splitting the first stage and staying overnight halfway in Fischbach.
Please read the descriptions of the stages 01a and 01b.
Idar-Oberstein is internationally known as the gemstone city. Various museums invite visitors to engage with the gemstones that have been mined and processed here for centuries. Accordingly, the first information panel on the Hildegard Trail deals with Hildegard's mineralogy (Panel 2: Stones, German Mineral Museum). However, the seer and natural healer abbess did not write about stones themselves, but about the healing effects of stones on humans.
Hildegard von Bingen Pilgrimage Trail
In her fourth book of Physica, she describes the effects of 26 (precious) stones. After the legendary rock church and the spectacular rock formations at the beginning, the nature-oriented path offers beautiful quiet stream valleys, ancient forests, and magnificent views when crossing the ridges.
Hildegard von Bingen, abbess, poet, theologian, naturalist, and healer, lived her entire life in today's Nahe vacation region.
The 137-kilometer-long Hildegard von Bingen Pilgrimage Trail passes various life stations of one of the most famous personalities of the Middle Ages. The trail starts in Idar-Oberstein and continues through Niederhosenbach, the family seat and possible birthplace of Hildegard von Bingen, to Bad Sobernheim. Not far from here is the Disibodenberg monastery ruin, where Hildegard spent almost 40 significant years of her life. The pilgrimage trail finally ends in Bingen on the Rhine. Here, the Rupertsberg vaulted cellar still bears witness to the last place of work of Hildegard von Bingen: In 1150, the saint founded the Rupertsberg monastery, which was her place of creation for 29 years. The last stations of this ecumenical pilgrimage trail are the Hildegard shrine in the pilgrimage church of St. Hildegard Rüdesheim-Ebingen and the Abbey of St. Hildegard Ebingen.
The pilgrimage trail is divided into 10 stages. The stages range from 5 to 21 kilometers.
59 information and meditation panels along the entire route inform about the person of Hildegard, her work, and life in the Middle Ages. The spiritual side of Hildegard von Bingen is approached by hikers through meditation panels that follow Hildegard von Bingen's visionary images from her main work "Silvias - Know the Ways" and provide impulses for meditation. The panels are written in both German and English.
The pilgrim pass can be stamped in the accommodation establishments, other way stations, and finally at the Abbey of St. Hildegard in Eibingen.
Short biography of St. Hildegard von Bingen
1098: Birth of Hildegard von Bingen, probably in Niederhosenbach near Herrstein
1112: Entry into the Disibodenberg monastery near Bad Sobernheim, together with Jutta von Sponheim
1136: Hildegard von Bingen becomes the second magistra in the Disibodenberg monastery after the death of Jutta von Sponheim
around 1150: Founding of her own women's monastery in Bingen on the Rhine
from 1150: Hildegard writes her visionary medical and musical works. She travels along the Rhine, Moselle, Main, and Neckar and preaches in public squares.
1165: Founding of a second women's monastery in Eibingen, the present pilgrimage church of St. Hildegard Rüdesheim-Eibingen
September 17, 1179: Hildegard von Bingen dies in Bingen on the Rhine
May 10, 2012: Canonization of Hildegard von Bingen by Pope Benedict XVI
October 7, 2012: Elevation to Doctor of the Church
