Wanderers Route

Start your Wanderers Route with a quiet stroll in the City Library of Pforzheim where you can find a bookshelf devoted to Ornamenta-related themes, artists and designers. Before you start your journey, have a coffee at Café Prosa on the ground floor which is run by social entrepreneurs Q-Prints and Service. To get to the first Ornamenta exhibition in the nearby Reuchlinhaus, walk over the Auer bridge where you will find a sculpture and the Sonnentempel. This is a focus point highly esteemed by the local Geomancy group. There you can walk in circles around the pavilion to feel the direction of the water stream. According to the Geomancers, this can counterbalance or speed up the impression of your footwork.

Continue walking towards the Stadtgarten of Pforzheim, a local park where nature is enjoyed by many locals, and where you find the Reuchlinhaus, a municipal cultural centre. Ornamenta visitors following the Wanderers Route are recommended to take the central staircase to the courtyard floor to see Ornamenta's exhibition “Solartal: on Tanning, Shades, and Spirits “. Have a closer look at one of the presented projects with a walk along energetic focus points at Hohenwart Forum, a nearby regional convention centre and your accommodation for tonight. Before walking out, have a look at the exhibitions responding to Ornamenta’s Inhalatorium theme: “Atmen & Sehen” by the Pforzheim Artist Association and “Ausgeräumt” by the Jewellery Museum.

Make your way for dinner at restaurant Kupferhammer and enjoy the outdoor Biergarten terrace for eating a salad or Nordschwarzwald-style dumplings called Maultaschen. Continue by bus to the Hohenwart Forum. After check-in, we recommend going for a sunset view on top of the nearby tower Hohe Warte, only a twenty-minute walk from Hohenwart Forum. Before you end the day, make sure to book a timeslot for the listening event “Hookaverse” for tomorrow at 2 pm via the Ornamenta smartphone application. Only twenty people can enter every 30 minutes so it is good to reserve a slot and avoid the waiting line at the Healing Cave Neubulach during your second and most active day of the Wanderers Route.

Before breakfast, have a look around and explore the premises of the Hohenwart Forum in the Geomancy groups’ spiral walk that leads to the outside labyrinth, pond and atelier house. It is recommended to have an extensive breakfast at the rich buffet. Before heading out, visit the exhibition in the main building, made by Hohenwart curator Christina Körners reacting to Ornamenta’s Solartal theme. Continue the Wanderers Route by travelling to the train station Bad Teinach-Neubulach. Taking a bus to the main station Pforzheim Hbf is the quickest way to get there.

From the train station Bad Teinach-Neubulach start your two hour walk uphill, to reach the Healing Cave Neubulach. Rest and open a lunch pack at the popular picnic area Geigerle Rastplatz in the middle of the forest. When you reach the caves of Neubulach you can show your Ornamenta ticket and reservation to get audio equipment and join in the listening event “Hookaverse”.  Immerse into the Hookaverse reclined in the deck chairs of the cave that has a temperature of constant eight degrees and air humidity of hundred percent. Before continuing your hike make sure to get some rest and regain your strength with a warm Flammkuchen from the Local Miners Association at the Klausenschänke just outside the mine.

You should continue hiking and rejoin the train line to Nagold at the station Wildberg Wildberg (Württ). Wildberg is the hometown of the wanderer's soul Dieter Dengler, a German turned United States army soldier whose escape from prison and plane crash were the base of Werner Herzog’s 1997 documentary  “Little Dieter Needs to Fly”. Make sure to walk via the Lützenschlucht, a picturesque forest canyon, leading you from the small and rocky path into a sunny river bank, and keep walking to get closer to the more industrious Northern Black Forest towns. From Wildberg, take the next train to the city of Nagold to catch the last sun rays at Gerichtsplatz where a newly installed sundial titled “From Nine to Five” aims to make people aware of spending time outdoors.

Check-in at Hotel Adler in Nagold and do not hesitate to indulge in their regional cuisine with seasonal offers. After dinner, learn about the revitalizing effects of nettle self-flagellation and other sensual and erotic acts involving plants and herbs as part of Ornamenta’s “Aphrodisiac Garden”. Put your feet in the grass and rest after a day of hiking, this new yard for intimacy, botany and health is embedded in Nagold's historic Zeller-Mörike-Garten where you can find out more about former plant-based rituals and love habits.

Start the day with a quick coffee and Butterbrezel, best is to find a spot along the high street of Nagold adorned with opulent flowers – all around the municipality you can enjoy the ‘Blumenswing’. To continue the Wanderers Route, return to Pforzheim Hbf by train and take the bus to the stop Hochschule/Wildpark to visit the Ornamenta exhibition “Zum Eros: on Charisma, Carriages and Ceremonies”. You will pass by the allotment garden settlement where the Pforzheimers celebrate communal gardening in their Schrebergarten, it is recommended to try and visit the Gartenstüble run by Familie Seitz for a second breakfast or a refreshing drink.

Conclude your hedonistic outdoor weekend with a final multisensorial stimulation in the “Binding Chapel”, a space dedicated to celebrating kinship in all its forms. Here, Ornamenta visitors of all ages, backgrounds, and species are invited to explore how to deepen connections. Visitors are welcome to participate in scheduled vow exchanges that acknowledge all forms of love; with friends, non-humans, ourselves, food, or even the natural world. Before heading back home and resting, right next to Ornamenta’s exhibition, you can enjoy a short visit to the regional wildlife park Wildpark.