This hike allows you to explore three sights on foot: the largest brick bridge in the world, Mylau Castle, and the visitor mine in Mühlwand.
The neo-Gothic brick building of the town church in Mylau (1890) houses a Silbermann organ from the predecessor building of 1731. The stained glass windows are also worth seeing.
The Eger Bridge in Mühlwand is part of the Via Imperii (Imperial Road) from Leipzig via Altenburg, Zwickau to Eger/Cheb in Bohemia. This trade route is about 850 years old. The first bridge over the Göltzsch was documented in 1573, the current arch bridge made of rubble stones was built in 1756/58.
Not far from the bridge on the left side is the site of an alum mine closed in 1827 in a funnel-shaped depression. From 1691, alum shale was mined in the first three pits, alum was boiled and sold. The mining was initially open-pit, later underground. Inside the former alum works is a dripstone grotto that was buried by the 2013 flood. After years of renovation measures, the mine was reopened to visitors on October 7, 2017, with a celebration. (Opening hours: Sat/Sun 1 pm – 4 pm, http://www.alaunwerk.de)
A detour leads to the entrance of the visitor mine and remains of a roasting stage. The formerly house-high slag heaps were mined and the material ground. This alum shale meal was used for mortar production in the construction of the Göltzsch Valley Bridge.
About the history of the Göltzsch Valley Bridge
One of the greatest sights and at the same time the landmark of the Vogtland spans the valley of the Göltzsch between Mylau and Netzschkau, the Göltzsch Valley Bridge. It is the largest brick bridge in the world and was built at a time when bridges with a height of 30 m elsewhere collapsed shortly before completion due to a lack of knowledge in static calculation.
Due to the construction of the Leipzig - Nuremberg railway line, the Saxon-Bavarian Railway Company had to deal with the construction of two bridges which were unprecedented in their planned size for the time. Alternative routes were considered, but the search for another rail route was unsuccessful. A competition was held in which many technicians from Germany participated, but all submitted designs had a critical flaw – none of the constructions were scientifically calculated. The designs were made based on intuition, and nobody could say how much the finished bridge would bear or whether it could withstand the emerging vibrations.
Therefore, Professor Andreas Schubert was commissioned with the static calculation. He was then head of an expert group for construction that was engaged in bridge construction and had been occupied for a long time with the calculation of bridges. He only lacked some experiments to confirm his theory, for which the railway administration provided the necessary funds.
Construction began in 1846. However, the construction plans had to be changed again because the foundation of the pillars at the valley floor did not find firm ground, digging further was too laborious, and technical difficulties arose.
Five years were spent working on the brick bridge until it was finally handed over to the public in 1851. At the inauguration, the Göltzsch Valley Bridge was considered the highest railway bridge worldwide. For the construction, 50,000 bricks in the unusual Dresden format were fired daily by almost 20 brickyards along the railway line. The construction scaffolding reportedly consumed 23,000 trees; others speak of 230,000 tree trunks.
A total of 1,736 workers were involved in the construction. Due to insufficient safety measures, numerous accidents occurred and even 31 fatalities were recorded during the construction period.
The bridge is 574 meters long and 78 meters high, with up to 4 levels and 81 arches.
