The best running trails around Mainhausen

For 2 km, a beautiful cycle path leads away from car traffic from Seligenstadt to Zellhausen. There is a lot of greenery to the left and right, and you even have a small incline for a bridge sprint over the bypass road. Here and there there are some repaired asphalt patches and slight bumps, but overall the access road is very good to ride on. It is a real alternative to the otherwise very busy main road L3065. Bonus: if you are very lucky, you can even watch gliders taking off or landing. 👀👉🏻✈️

The Seligenstadt-Zellhausen Air Sports Club has been operating the airfield near Zellhausen since 1957.

Today just a large open space, no planes in sight. On other days it's fun to at least follow the aircraft with your eyes 😉

Attention !!! Closure from October 6, 2025 - mid-December 2025

Most runners here do not have a view of the basilica, which is well worth seeing.

Beautiful running route directly on the Main with a beautiful, new surface.

Around the year 100 AD, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Trajan, a cohort fort was built on the site of today's Seligenstadt market square and parts of today's old town, the Castrum Selgum. The cohort stationed there was called Cohors I Civium Romanorum equitata and was responsible for the security of the Limes section along the Main (also known as the Upper Germanic Limes). When the Limes fell during the Alemanni storms around the year 260 AD, the fort was abandoned and the Romans retreated back behind the Rhine line. The early medieval settlement of Mulinheim superior, Obermühlheim, was built on the ruins of the former fort and on the current monastery grounds in the valley section of the Breitenbach. The oldest known written mention of Seligenstadt, then known as Obermühlheim, goes back to the donation from Ludwig I to Einhard and, according to a copy of the donation document in the Codex Laureshamensis, dated January 11, 815. The town was founded by Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne. After he received the Franconian domain of Obermulinheim as a donation from Ludwig the Pious in 815, he founded a Benedictine monastery here. A Count Drogo is mentioned as a previous owner. The bones of the martyrs Peter and Marcellinus, stolen in Rome, were transferred from the basilica in Steinbach in the Odenwald to Obermühlheim in 828, which thus became a place of pilgrimage. The name of the town soon changed from Obermühlheim to Seligenstadt. The bones of the martyrs were initially kept in the Laurentius Chapel on the estate, but this proved to be too small given the influx of believers. Einhard therefore promptly began building the Einhard Basilica, the landmark of the city on the Lower Main, and, as its first lay abbot, founded a Benedictine abbey as his own monastery. Source: Wikipedia

The palace complex was first confirmed in the middle of the 13th century under Emperor Frederick II. It is located directly on the banks of the Main on the old Mainstrasse, possibly on the site of older buildings or a manorial courtyard, was easily accessible by boat from Frankfurt or Mainz and enabled hunting in the imperial forest of the Upper Spessart. In the 13th century the palace is mentioned as a castrum, and from the 14th century the building is mentioned as a keysirhaus or red castle. A similarity between the preserved columns of the northern window group and the Romanesque House in Seligenstadt built between 1186 and 1187, the Maulbronn Hospital Corridor built between 1170 and 1180, the Landgrave's House on the Wartburg built by around 1170 and the Hôpital Saint-Jean in Angers built in 1175 is cited as a sign that it was built between 1181 and 1188 by Barbarossa. The original building may have been rebuilt with minor changes after a fire, as traces of fire can be seen on the inner masonry and on columns, which are kept in the lapidarium of the Seligenstadt Prelature Museum; some windows may have been replaced under the original overlay arches and the two preserved portals, whose stonemasonry dates back to around 1210–1220, were inserted. Only the front of the palace facing the Main, which was incorporated into the city wall, remained of the complex. The current state of the facade is the result of investigations and restorations in 1883 and 1938. It consists of blocks of red Main sandstone. The building, whose front facing the Main it formed, was rectangular (19 × 46 m), two-storey and covered with slate. The upper floor had a balcony facing the Main, which served as a view of the river and as a connection between the rooms on the upper floor. The ground floor of the building is largely unadorned and consisted of a large, two-aisled hall with central supports and a beamed ceiling. The upper floor, on the other hand, is elaborately designed with several Romanesque door and window openings. From these, the layout of the upper floor can be deduced: at each end, a room is reconstructed that took up the entire depth of the building. The north-western room is interpreted as a banqueting hall, the south-eastern as a bower. In the middle, the bedroom is assumed to be located, as well as possibly smaller rooms. Source: Wikipedia