Round trip along the beautiful Main near Waigolshausen

There are 40 bicycle parking spaces in the immediate vicinity of the railway station.

You start at Waigolshausen railway station and take the cycle path towards Werneck. Your first stage is around two and a half kilometres long. Along the way, the countryside opens up with liberating views. You soon come to the castle park, which you cycle halfway round to reach the main entrance to Werneck Castle in the north of the park.

The large baroque palace in the small town of Werneck is a jewel among southern German palaces and is considered Balthasar Neumann's most mature secular building. It stands in a large, originally also baroque park, which was later remodelled into an English garden.

There was already a castle complex on this site over 800 years ago, which, like many other castles, was devastated in 1525 during the German Peasants' War and burnt down almost 30 years later. Rebuilt half a century later, it burned down again in 1723.

In 1733, Balthasar Neumann was finally commissioned by Prince-Bishop Friedrich Karl von Schönborn to begin construction work on the magnificent summer residence, which still impresses today with its well-balanced design.

In the middle of the 19th century, the "little sister of the Würzburg Residence", as it is popularly known, was converted into one of the first psychiatric clinics in Germany. Its director Bernhard von Gudden later writes one of the psychiatric reports on the basis of which Ludwig II is deposed as King of Bavaria. Both drown in Lake Starnberg under mysterious circumstances.

To this day, the castle serves as a hospital, including one of the largest specialised orthopaedic clinics in Germany. The castle chapel, also designed by Neumann, and the castle park are open to visitors.

Attached to the hospital is the Balthasar café and bistro, which serves savoury snacks as well as coffee and cake.

Continue along Balthasar-Neumann-Straße in the direction you came from. Shortly after Am Schlosspark, turn left into Bühlweg and cross the river Wern. Follow the "Wern and Main-Werra cycle path".

Now keep right towards Ettleben and continue towards Bergrheinfeld. Turn right at the roundabout. Cross the road after 500 metres. Do you have children with you or would you like to feel the Franconian soil under your bare feet? Then why not descend briefly here and visit the "Labyrinth on the Main cycle path" with its barefoot path and snack garden. The Main is now very close.

Turn left at Jahnstraße, cycle past the sports field and after a few hundred metres you come to Mainstraße, where you cross the river for the first time. Cycle through Grafenrheinfeld on Brückenstraße and Hauptstraße until you reach the southern end of the town.

Behind the last building, where the road curves gently to the left, take the path half right. You touch the Alter Main and cycle straight southwards.

The path leads through open fields. If you want to immerse yourself in the enchanted meadow and lake landscape of the Old Main in the Schweinfurt Mainbogen, then keep a little further west. Explore the Garstadt bird sanctuary before crossing the Unkenbach and heading into Heidenfeld.

Turn into Klosterstraße, which will take you directly to Heidenfeld Monastery.

Heidenfeld Monastery, also known as Maria Hilf Monastery, looks back on a history spanning almost a thousand years. In the 11th century, Countess Alberada, daughter of Margrave Otto von Schweinfurt, donated part of her land with all the properties and rights to establish a monastery. Not long afterwards, the Augustinian canons' monastery of St Mauritius was consecrated in Heidenfeld. From here, the pastoral monks looked after over 20 parishes

In the 16th century, the monastery was destroyed twice in the Peasants' Wars and during the Margraviate War. The Augustinians rebuilt it. After the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War, a new period of prosperity began. Between 1723 and 1733, the monastery was considerably extended. The plans for the new eastern convent building were drawn up by the architect and building director Balthasar Neumann, who was also responsible for the construction of the Würzburg Residence at the same time

In 1803, the monastery was abolished in the course of secularisation. At that time, many ecclesiastical institutions were expropriated under the influence of Napoleon and the monastery complex was subsequently owned by the nobility for almost a century. The Augustinian monastery became a castle.

In 1901, the Congregation of the Sisters of the Saviour bought the property. In the 1930s, they closed the gap in the building that had been created 100 years earlier when the church was demolished. They had a new south wing with a chapel and a baroque altar built. A 120-year history of the convent as a convalescent home for sick and elderly sisters began. In 1975 and 2003, extensions were added to house a nursing home for the sisters.

This stage offers a variety of charming landscapes. You leave Heidenfeld again via Klosterstraße and Kirchgasse.

Take the road to Hirschfeld and cycle directly into the village on the cycle path along St.-Kilian-Straße. At Gernacher Straße, keep left and cycle through fields, past a small wood and along the stream towards Lindach.

Before entering the village, asparagus fields and fruit tree plantations begin, which are particularly enchanting during the cherry blossom season. The vineyards begin towards the Main. Continue south from Lindach and after Öttershausen take the mountain path on the right into the vineyards, first towards the Main and then parallel to it towards Stammheim. Shortly before the village, you will pass the world's largest Bocksbeutel, a steel sculpture in the characteristic bottle shape.

Winzerstraße and Maingasse lead you back to the river. You cycle north along the banks and through the Main floodplain, where you will soon catch sight of St Ludwig's Monastery.

The origins of St. Ludwig date back to the discovery of sulphur springs around 1800. The spa opened in 1811 and in 1823 the Bavarian Queen Theresia Charlotte visited the healing springs. Her husband King Ludwig I allowed the up-and-coming spa to be named "Ludwigsbad" after him. Five years later, a three-storey spa centre was built, which was extended in 1837. From 1850 to 1880, the spa, which operated until 1901, is said to have accommodated up to 400 spa guests a year.

Benedictine monks acquired the complex around 1900. They set up a monastery and a boarding school. The monastery church was built a few years later in neo-Romanesque style. However, there are also influences from early Christian and Byzantine art and Art Nouveau.

The furnishings and paintwork of the church have been completely preserved to this day. All of the sculptures, carvings on the choir stalls and pews as well as the Stations of the Cross come from the Würzburg workshop of Heinz Schiestl - one of the most respected sculptors of historicism in Franconia.

By 1913, the monastery was already too small and the monks moved to Münsterschwarzach. St Ludwig continued to be a training and recreation centre for the Benedictines. When they also moved the boarding school to the abbey in Münsterschwarzach in 1963, the Franciscan nuns from Oberzell took over. They built a girls' home, school buildings and workshops. Today, St. Ludwig is home to a curative education and therapeutic youth welfare centre for girls and young women.

On your shortest stage, you return to the Main and cross over to the other bank on board your fourth highlight of this tour.

Ferries on the Main have a long tradition and history. A ferry privilege was granted in Würzburg as early as 1030, 100 years before the first stone bridge was built. The first mention of a ferry in Schweinfurt dates back to 1282. In the late Middle Ages, ferries on the Main could already transport entire carts.

Today, around a dozen ferries are still in operation on the Main. The majority are equipped to transport cars and lorries up to a certain total weight, while some are only for people and bicycles. The Main ferry, which connects St. Ludwig and Wipfeld, can transport up to 30 tonnes and 50 people.

You have crossed the Main a second time. Now you cycle along the west bank of the Main towards Schweinfurt. Between Dächheim and Garstadt, turn left at Bachwiesengraben and follow it to Hergolshausen. From there, you cycle through fields and along the Langwiesengraben back to your start and finish in Waigolshausen.