Hainich

Declared in 1997, Hainich is Thuringia's only national park and protects one of the largest old-growth beech forests surviving in central Germany, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011 within the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe. Its canopy walkway lets visitors look out over the forest from the treetops, and much of its land served as a Soviet military training ground through the Cold War, which held off the loggers and helped preserve the old forest.