The Lamer Winkel is a region in the northern

Bavarian Forest The village of Zell in the Bavarian Forest The Bavarian Forest (German: ' or ''Bayerwald''; bar, Boarischa Woid) is a wooded, low-mountain region in Bavaria, Germany that is about 100 kilometres long. It runs along the Czech border and is con ...

between the mountains of

Hoher Bogen The Hohe Bogen (archaically often Hohenbogen) is a roughly 8-kilometre-long mountain ridge in the Bavarian Forest. It rises in the Bavarian province of Upper Palatinate in the county of Cham and is almost equally divided between the municipalit ...

, Osser,

Arber Arber is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Agnes Arber (1879–1960), British botanist and philosopher of biology *Edward Arber (1836–1912), British academic and writer * Edward Alexander Newell Arber, British paleobotanist ...

and

Kaitersberg The Kaitersberg is a low mountain crest up to east of Bad Kötzting in the Bavarian Forest in southern Germany. Its long ridge runs eastwards towards the Großer Arber. The highest peak on the ridge is the 1,132 metre high Großer Riedelstein ...

; politically it belongs to the county of

Cham Cham or CHAM may refer to: Ethnicities and languages *Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia **Cham language, the language of the Cham people ***Cham script ***Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script *Cham Albanian ...

in the

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

n province of

Upper Palatinate The Upper Palatinate (german: Oberpfalz, , ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany, and is located in the east of Bavaria. Geography The Upper Palatinate is a landscape with low mountains and numerous ponds and lakes ...

Geography

This formerly remote valley is one of the most scenic regions of the Bavarian Forest and, as a result, has been heavily developed in recent decades for

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...

. In the Lamer Winkel are the municipalities of Lohberg, Lam and Arrach, which form a popular holiday

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

, especially for families. The valley is surrounded by the densely wooded ridges of the Hoher Bogen and the

Kunisch Mountains The Kunisch Mountains (german: Künisches Gebirge; cz, Královský Hvozd, meaning "Royal Forest") is a range that includes part of the Bavarian Forest and the central Bohemian Forest, with its main chain between the Osser and the Zwercheck close ...

in the north and by the crests of the Arber and Kaitersberg in the south. There are numerous hiking trails to the surrounding summits as well as along the valley. Hiking, walking, cycling and, in winter, cross-country skiing are popular activities. The Lamer Winkel is not only accessible by car, but also with the Oberpfalzbahn railway, which runs from

to Lam. The latter is the largest village in the valley and gives it its name. It remains an unspoilt

market village A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

History

The Lamer Winkel was first developed in 1279 by clearance and settlement activity under the aegis of Rott am Inn Abbey. By 1420 most of the villages outside Lam had been established. In the 15th century, the

Hussite Wars The Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars or the Hussite Revolution, were a series of civil wars fought between the Hussites and the combined Catholic forces of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, the Papacy, European monarchs loyal to the Cat ...

and Böckler War led to considerable devastation and abandonment. In the 16th century the villages and farmsteads were rebuilt The old

glassworks Glass production involves two main methods – the float glass process that produces sheet glass, and glassblowing that produces bottles and other containers. It has been done in a variety of ways during the history of glass. Glass container ...

, glass grinding workshops and

hammer mill A hammer mill, hammer forge or hammer works was a workshop in the pre-industrial era that was typically used to manufacture semi-finished, wrought iron products or, sometimes, finished agricultural or mining tools, or military weapons. The featur ...

s in Lohberghütte and Schrenkenthal developed into early industrial sites in the 19th century. {{coord missing, Bavaria Bavarian Forest Valleys of Bavaria Cham (district)