Stage 01 Hildegard of Bingen Pilgrimage Trail: Idar-Oberstein - Herrstein

The 1st stage of the Hildegard of Bingen Pilgrimage Trail is very demanding. For about 19 kilometres, the trail leads along narrow paths, past rocks, through forest and also includes a section that leads steeply down on stairs.

We therefore recommend splitting up the first stage and spending the night halfway in Fischbach.  Please read the descriptions for stages 01a and 01b.

Idar-Oberstein is internationally renowned as the gemstone town. Various museums there invite visitors to go see the gemstones that have been mined and processed here for centuries. Fittingly, the first information board on Hildegard Way deals with Hildegard's history of stones (Board 2: Stones, German Mineral Museum). However, the visionary abbess who was an expert in natural medicine did not write about stones as such, but rather about the healing effect of stones on people.

Hildegard of Bingen Pilgrimage Trail

In her fourth book of her Physica, she describes the effects of 26 (precious) stones. After the legendary rock church and the spectacular rock formations at the beginning, the nature trail offers beautiful quiet stream valleys, old forests and magnificent views when crossing the heights.

Hildegard of Bingen, abbess, poet, theologian, naturalist and healer lived in what is now the Nahe holiday region throughout her life. The 137-kilometre Hildegard of Bingen Pilgrimage Trail passes various stations in the life of this probably most famous personality of the Middle Ages. The trail starts in Idar-Oberstein and continues via Niederhosenbach, the family seat and possible birthplace of Hildegard of Bingen, to Bad Sobernheim. Not far from here is the Disibodenberg monastery ruins, where Hildegard spent almost 40 significant years of her life. The Pilgrimage Trail ultimately ends in Bingen am Rhein. Here, the Rupertsberg vaulted cellar still bears witness to Hildegard of Bingen’s last place of work: in 1150, the saint founded the Rupertsberg monastery, which was the place of her work for 29 years. The last stops on 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 split into 10 stages. The stages vary between 5 and 21 kilometres.

59 information and meditation boards along the entire route provide information about Hildegard as a person, her work and life in the Middle Ages. Hikers approach the spiritual side of Hildegard of Bingen through meditation boards that follow Hildegard of Bingen’s visionary images from her main work of “Scivias - Know the Ways” and give stimulus for meditation. The boards are written in both German and English.

The pilgrim’s passport can be stamped at accommodation establishments, other way stations and finally at St. Hildegard’s Abbey in Eibingen.

Brief résumé of St. Hildegard of Bingen

1098: Birth Hildegard of Bingen, presumably in Niederhosenbach near Herrstein

1112: enters the Disibodenberg monastery near Bad Sobernheim, together with Jutta of Sponheim

1136: Hildegard of Bingen becomes, after the death of Jutta of Sponheim, the second Magistra in the Disibodenberg monastery

around 1150: founds her own female monastery in Bingen am Rhein

from 1150: Hildegard writes her visionary medical & musical works. She travels along the Rhine, Moselle, Main and Neckar and preaches in public places.

1165: Foundation of a second female convent in Eibingen, today’s pilgrimage church of St. Hildegard Rüdesheim-Eibingen

17 September 1179: Hildegard of Bingen dies in Bingen am Rhein

10 May 2012: Canonisation of Hildegard of Bingen by Pope Benedict XVI

7 October 2012: Elevation to Doctor of the Church