Eibenstock sits high in the western Erzgebirge, at about six hundred metres above the sea, in a country of spruce forests and cold, clear streams. It owes its origins to tin: miners worked the tin deposits here from the Middle Ages, and the mining landscape around the town, with old spoil heaps, shafts and water channels, is part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, which UNESCO recognised in 2019. Today, the traces are quiet, softened by moss and birch.
Later, the town found fame for something very different: machine embroidery. In the nineteenth century, Eibenstock became a centre of Saxon embroidery and lace, supplying fashion houses across Europe, and the tradition lives on in a small museum and a few workshops. To the north, the large Eibenstock reservoir, built on the Zwickauer Mulde in the early 1980s, is the biggest in Saxony and supplies drinking water to a wide region. The lake is dark and long, wrapped in forest, and the dam wall is impressive.
Eibenstock is a town of nearly seven thousand, with fuel, supermarkets, bakeries and a few small hotels. The Erzgebirge generally is well supplied, with villages every few kilometres, and local specialities include wild-game dishes, dumplings, and sweet baked goods during Advent. The Ehrenfriedersdorf tin mine, on a neighbouring ride, is open as a museum and gives a closer look at the underground workings.
The riding around the reservoir and over the plateau is excellent. Roads curve gently through the woods, rise and fall with the land, and open occasionally onto views over the water or the Czech border hills. Traffic is light, especially on weekdays. Winters are long and snowy, with ski runs in nearby villages, and roads may be icy from November to March. Summer is cool and green, ideal for riding, and autumn, with its golden birches and smoky mornings, is the best time of all.