Holzweg Theme Trail

This forest trail has 21 wooden installations along the trail, to delight and possibly confuse. The kids loved walking though the hanging wooden poles, which clashed loudly as they bounced around.

My favorite was walking through 21 Japanese-inspired red gates. At the start of the trail, you can explore the ruins of a castle. In the middle, there’s a playground and a nice picnic area with fire pits, wood, and tables.

This is a good choice for cloudy days or very hot days where you need some shade. No big views, just a nice walk through the forest and grassy fields, popular with local families.

First, a little video of our family on the Holzweg.

Trail Overview

Here is the official trail map from Naturpark Thal. Get the PDF on their website. We started at the castle ruins at the far left (#1), then followed the red trail past #3 (the red Japanese gates), the followed the numbers in order (skipping the detours to 13, 14, and 17, more about that below). 

There are several picnic areas with fire pits, but the best is at #9, where you’ll find a playground and WC.

The above map is a little hard to follow, so I made this map which is a bit more accurate. View bigger.

Trail map

Here is a trail map that visits most of the installations.

See trail map on Komoot • SchweizMobil.

Getting There

This trail is in the Naturpark Thal between Solothurn and Basel.

There are several places where you can park and join the trail.

I will give directions to Basthal where we started the hike, near the castle ruins. We parked at Forstwerkhof on the far left of the map. After doing the trail, I think it would also be fine to park at P2 Langer Steg and start the trail there. I would not park at P1. The bus drops at St. Wolfgang near the castle, so that’s a good place to start if you are taking public transportation.

By public transport:

Take a train to Basthal, then bus 115 to Basthal, St. Wolfgang (direction Ramiswil, Dorf). The trail starts here, up to the castle.

By car:

They recommend parking at Parkplatz P2 Langer Steg, on the east side of the trail. 

We parked on the west side of the trail at Forstwerkhof as shown on the map below. It doesn’t have an address, just this GPS: 47°19’15.8″N 7°42’09.6″E. You can park here on weekends and holidays.

Slightly hidden sign to the parking.

Photo story

Finding the trail head

From the parking, walk east along the road shown below.

In a couple minutes, you reach these buildings and you can see the castle above. Walk past these buildings and you’ll start seeing signs for the Holzweg. At the restaurant on your left, you walk past their outdoor seating to reach the trail that goes up through the forest to the castle.

Trail to Castle

Here’s the path leading up to the castle, with lots of stairs. No strollers here.

Nice views of the village from the castle. No entrance fee to visit the ruins.

You can freely walk around the ruins and even climb up one of the towers.

At the castle, there is a wooden platform like a ship bow (#1) but we couldn’t find #2.

On the Holzweg

After visiting the castle, walk on the trail leading north from the castle and turn right. Follow the path through the forest, walking through 21 of the red gates shown below (#3). On the map, you’ll see a parallel path with #4 which has the tall statue shown below. You can take that path on your way back.

After the gates, you’ll walk through a very lovely field full of wildflowers.

Views of the rocky cliffs from the field.

This picnic area is at the far end of the field. The trail forks right after this, take the right fork, which goes down, down, down hill, passing #5 to #6.

At the bottom of the hill, you turn right and walk through these poles (#7).

Then make some music on these chimes (#8).

View from the chimes.

Some wood balls on this rocky path and past these big wooden balls (#9).

Playground & Picnic Area

Finally at the playground in the middle of the forest.

A very nice picnic area here with multiple fire pits, grills, wood, and picnic tables.

Detours

From the playground, there are some wooden sculptures on offshoot trails not part of the loop you are walking (#13, #14, and #17). You can skip them or simply walk down those paths briefly to take a peek then come back to the main trail.

Looping back to start

After the playground, follow the bigger path going east under this wooden cloud (#15).

Some wood balls on this rocky path (#16).

Below is a wood garden (#13) and wooden poles you can walk through to make lots of noise (#18). Our kids liked these hanging poles the best, see the video above to see it in action.

#19 and #21

Some bee homes along the way.

The trail connects back to the big field of flowers leading to the castle and your starting point.

That’s it! I hope you enjoy it.

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