Kulmer Steig

The Kulmer Steig was an especially good transport route because the road cut a passage through untamed wilderness and 30 kilometres could be covered in a day.

The riverbank route close to the Elbe, by contrast, runs through a canyon-like ravine in Bohemian Switzerland which, taking into account security considerations, was viewed as rather unsafe by travelling merchants, because the sparsely populated region offered little protection.

The castles in Saxon and Bohemian Switzerland, especially after the impoverishment of their noble owners in the 15th century, also tended to favour robber baronies rather than protection of the trading routes.

Dohna formed an outstandingly well protected entrance into the Mohelnice valley with its castles on the Robisch and the Reichsburg on the Schlossberg opposite and enabled a very safe passage and crossing of the lower Eastern Ore Mountains.

This is evinced, inter alia, by archaeological finds (pottery, coins, even from Roman times, tools, weapons) from the Bronze (ca.

Even a few finds from the Neolithic (Stone Age ca 4500-1800 BC) show statistically significant associations with the above-described routes of the Kulmer Steig.

The first records of such use, however, date to 1040, when Margrave Eckhard II of Meissen with the Saxon army and a force under Archbishop Bardo of Mainz advanced into Bohemia and intervened in the dispute between Henry III and Bretislaus I The eastward expansion of Henry I may also have followed this route, especially since he also credited with the establishment of Dohna Castle in 930 (other sources identify Otto I as founding it around 960, perhaps this is a misunderstanding with regard to the castle on the Robisch and the Reichsburg opposite on the Schlossberg).