Rund um den Blasenstein

Character:
Easy hike on goods roads, forest and meadow paths.

The encounter with the b'soffenen Nonne is only recommended at the end of today's hike: this spiritual speciality is available - along with other delicacies - at the Gasthaus Ahorner below the pilgrimage church of St. Thomas am Blasenstein. A little above it, you can redeem this little sin by squeezing yourself through the narrow humpback hollow of the Blasenstein. This mythical stone sanctuary rises right next to the Gothic church. The archaic custom of wiping away sins and illnesses is widespread throughout the world. The basement of the church harbours another secret, namely the mysteriously mummified corpse of the clergyman Franz Xaverius Sydler, who died around 1746 and is somewhat disrespectfully referred to as the "g'selchten Pfarrer" (the "holy priest"). The church itself stands on the so-called Burgstall, where, as finds from the 11th century prove, there really was a castle. Around St Thomas, dozens of bowl stones, sacrificial stones, wobble stones, hole stones, hermit stones, phallus stones and pitch oil stones are waiting to be discovered, as well as old wayside shrines and huge granite rocks, a mysterious stone staircase and the stone remains of two castles.
A good overview is provided by hiking trail S 4, which leads you south to the Heimkehrerkreuz cross and down to the village of Unter St. Thomas. Just before the chapel on the main road (opposite the Untermartaler farm), you need to take a sharp right - this will take you through a romantic forest valley down to the Kefermühlbach stream. Walk briefly out of the valley on the goods road there until a path on the right leads up to the ruins of Saxenegg, which are in a state of ruin. Below it, the trail leads through a romantic forest with countless granite boulders to a forest road that leads to the Elmböckalm. Turn right there, cross the meadow and turn left before the edge of the forest to the Renold farmstead. Turn right in front of it and head towards the Großöllinger (the Schwärzermauer and the Einsiedlerstein with the largest sitting bowl in the Mühlviertel are hidden in the forest to the left of the path). On the municipal road you soon reach, walk 1 km to the right in the direction of St. Thomas. At the chapel of the Dechtlgruber farm, you can see a large pitch oil stone - wood was once smouldered on leaf-shaped grooved stone slabs like this one in order to extract healing essences from it. Then turn right onto hiking trail S 4. The trail descends through a wooded ditch (the two smallest pitch oil stones in the country are hidden in the towering rocks opposite). At the bottom, walk briefly to the left along the farm track next to the Kefermühlbach stream, then turn right along farm and field paths to the Kleindienst farmstead and past a wayside shrine back to the starting point.

Rest stops:
in St. Thomas