Görlitz and the Zittau Mountains: two places in Germany I’ve long wanted to visit, tucked away in Saxony.
When I was in college, I did a summer internship at Silver Pictures on the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, California. During that time, I racked up all kinds of credit card debt to pay for gas and groceries while working that unpaid internship and unpaid production gigs.
Suffice it to say, I realized L.A. wasn’t exactly the place for me. Now I live in Berlin, but if I ever change my mind, I can just go a few hours outside the city. It’s not Hollywood, but “Görliwood”—a nickname given to Görlitz because of the number of movies filmed here, like Inglourious Basterds and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Ralph Fiennes even wrote a note thanking the city for being “the best location ever.” That’s high praise from the Dark Lord himself.
Heading to Görliwood
Train cancellations delayed our visit by over a day, so we didn’t have much time to walk around. It’s fall, after all, and the days are shrinking like grandma hitting her 90th birthday. So we quickly dropped our bags and started making our way through Görliwood. Even on a short stroll to the Polish border, it’s easy to see why the award-winning actor was so enamored with the city. Still, I’m steering clear of his favorite restaurant. Instead, we went to Bierblume, a local brewery with a plant-powered burger to end the night.
The next day, we continued south to Zittau, where we picked up a historical steam engine train for the short journey down to Oybin. The sun’s coming out, and I’m on a train headed to the mountains—this is my happy place.
Once in Oybin, we quickly dropped our bags and set out on a short hike around the area. I was planning a little trail run today; there’s actually a race next week called the O-SEE Ultra, but we found out about it too late. They already had the routes up, so I thought I’d run the 16k today and the 25k tomorrow. But we had more hiccups with the trains getting here, so I decided that I, Melanie, and little Moses would just do a short hike to break in my new shoes. Tomorrow, I’ll get up, get motivated, and run the 25k route—probably my last big run before heading to Japan for the Ninja Trail Run.
Running Around the Zittau Mountains
This is a very lovely part of Germany. I haven’t been here before, but it’s very similar to the Saxon Switzerland region. Nice fall colors, good hike!
The hike centers around Burg & Kloster Oybin, a 13th-century fortress turned monastery that fell into ruin during the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. But hey, I think it looks pretty nice as a ruin. It’s like the architectural equivalent of embracing your wrinkles instead of attacking your face with Botox.
And just as I did in Saxon Switzerland, I’m ready for a run. Melanie joined me for the first few kilometers before heading back into town. I’ve got another 25k or so to do along the O-SEE Ultra course. I assumed it’d be cleared up and ready for runners so I could have a smooth training session before my final long run ahead of Japan. Not so much—loggers were out in full force, battling an infestation of bark beetles. At one point, a logger warned me it was dangerous up ahead. Luckily, I understood his German… only to ignore him anyway, crawl over the lumber, and continue on my way. I did have to squeeze by one Bobcat and jump into a pit of mud, but it was relatively smooth sailing from thereon out.
Migraine Madness and Supporting Stella Silbermann
About 14k into the run, I start getting these little swirls in my vision, which usually indicates a migraine is on the horizon. It doesn’t happen often, maybe once or twice a year. Usually, if I just lie down and turn the lights off, I can almost beat it before it starts. Unfortunately, I’m in the middle of a trail. Psychologically, I really want to finish this whole route because I haven’t done much trail running since my race in North Macedonia, and I’ve got the Ninja Trail Run in a few weeks in Japan. So I’m going to keep going and see how the vision holds up. I can still see well enough in front of me, so we’ll go from there.
Later on, I’m feeling much better. It’s been a bit of a slog, not my best run, but I guess I’ll be glad I did this before Japan. Right now, though, not super thrilled with this scrambling climb ahead of me.
At the peak of my run, straddling the border of Germany and Czechia, I learned about Stella Silbermann. Stella worked at the Zittau-Görlitz University of Applied Sciences and was a volunteer instructor and administrative assistant at the DLRG (German Life Saving Association). Stella passed away a little over a year ago, at just 34 years old, after a fight with cancer. Her family has since started raising funds to launch a foundation in her honor that will support financially and materially disadvantaged children. As of March 2024, they’ve raised €28,000 of the €50,000 needed. Here’s a link with more information on how you can support her memory and this cause.
Straddling Europe
One of the many things I love about living in the European Union is how you can just cross borders like this. You’ve got the border of Czechia here, marked by these little markers that say “C.” On the other side, you’ll see a similar white marker with a “D” on it. No border checks, just little markers reminding you these are different countries. But ultimately, it’s all the same, as you can see in the surrounding forest. It just emphasizes that borders are human-made bullshit.
With my geopolitical TED Talk out of the way, I finish the final stretch back into Oybin, where Melanie and Mo were already waiting for me with some pizza, which we topped off with a very German helping of café and kuchen.
Zittau and a Run-in with the AfD
On our final morning in Saxony, with my big training run behind me, I went for an easy shakeout run outside the city. The kind folks at Hotel Sonne were nice enough to give us a late checkout, so I had plenty of time to enjoy breakfast, go for my run, and shower before starting the journey back to Berlin. I can only imagine how grateful everyone on the train was that I got that shower.
During the run, I thought about whether or not I’d publicly address something that happened the night before. I honestly debated whether to include this in the video because I don’t usually discuss local politics or issues I disagree with. In this ongoing discussion about whether to boycott a place you politically disagree with or to visit it, I generally believe you should still explore these places as long as you can do so safely. There are many people there who are fighting the good fight, so you can support them and their businesses when you travel.
That said, I do think you should come to this region if you can. It’s beautiful and a bit off the beaten path for foreigners traveling in Germany. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the obvious things I witnessed the night before and what’s been going on in this area. For example, if I were traveling through a part of the U.S. with a heavy Trump base and lots of guns around, I would make a similar warning.
The night before, we were walking around beautiful Marktplatz, the center of town, following waymarker signs. We came across a floral clock display, and while we were there, we started hearing honking. Cars began driving around waving AfD flags. For those who don’t know, the AfD is an alternative to Deutschland and is essentially the far-right extremist party in Germany—basically neo-Nazis with brighter colors and a Nike swoosh. Unfortunately, they are quite popular in this part of the country.
At first, I thought it was just some idiots driving around; not a big deal. But as we finished our walk toward the center of town, just around the corner from our hotel, we encountered a big rally with a stage and bright lights. I won’t repeat some of the things we heard from the speakers because it was awful, and it’s a shame that such negativity would mark this trip in an otherwise beautiful region. Throughout our journey from Görlitz down to Oybin, all our interactions with individuals were wonderful.
That’s why, in this whole argument about whether you should still visit these places if you disagree with their politics, I lean toward saying you should go if you feel safe. You can still have those nice interactions. We don’t know if the people we interacted with were AfD supporters, but since we noticed these issues without looking for them, I felt compelled to mention it. I wouldn’t have brought it up if we hadn’t seen the cars driving around and heard the rally on a Monday night. It’s not like there was an election coming up, so this must be something that happens regularly.
I don’t usually like to write negatively about cultural or political differences I disagree with while traveling abroad, but I’m German now. And this isn’t just about tipping culture in the U.S. versus Europe. This is a topic where, depending on who you are, you might not feel safe or welcomed while traveling here. So, it’s important to mention.
I really hate to end on that note, but remember that 95% of this video and post were about how wonderful this region was to visit. I personally wouldn’t hesitate to come back.
