Waymarking in Europe

WAYMARKING 1 IN EUROPE // 2017 2 3 Waymarking in Europe Over the course of the past 100 years footpaths have become an indispensable part of walking in Europe. They contribute to the conservation of nature in an important way to the understanding of nature in general and the knowledge of places of historical interest in particular regions and our joint European history in the widest possible context. Waymarking, which began in some regions close to 140 years ago, is mostly carried out by walking clubs, who use volunteer workers for this purpose. Walking clubs are very proud of this tradition. The existing system of waymarking has been developed in such a way that all paths correspond to the basic requirements or principles for marked footpaths. These requirements and principles are under “General Principes for Marking“. The diversity of forms of marking in individual regions is not an obstacle to the movement of walkers along marked paths. In general, Europe is split into four regions, which use different waymarking systems, although the system of waymarking in each region has very similar signs and rules of marking: • South-West Europe: Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy • Middle-South Europe: Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Hercegovina • Middle-East Europe: Eastern part of Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hun- gary, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria • North-West Europe: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, Vosges, West- ern part of Germany ERA has prepared a structured overview of waymarking systems in the majority of European countries. To help you with the orientation in the text, please see „Description of text“ for the list of points they might be useful for your search. We are very happy for any improvement or ideas you have to our overview of waymarking. We regularily update our site, therefore you are very welcome to send to the ERA office your notices. Please write to: [email protected] We hope to help you a little bit on the way across Europe. Enjoy your walking. Jana Harnochova ERA office 4 General principles for signing and marking footpaths • Waymarks should be placed in the direction • Long sections of routes without junctions of the route so that they are clearly visible should be provided with reassurance marks. from a distance. The distance between junctions, guidance marks, confirmation marks and the first • Waymarks should be positioned on an reassurance mark should not exceed 250 m. object so that the whole mark is visible from This distance should be shortened in dif- the point of view of the approaching walker, ficult or mountainous terrain. by ensuring that the surface of the mark forms an angle of more than 45° with the • If the marked route turns off on another line of route. path or changes direction suddenly, an arrow should be used, with the point of the • The route should be waymarked in both arrow indicating the new direction. directions, with two clearly separate marks. Each of these marks should be positioned • Increased attention should be paid to the with respect to one direction only. signing of routes in built-up areas, and in particular along sections leaving built-up • Junctions are places where paths cross, join areas. or diverge from each other. When carrying out marking, special attention must be paid • Directional panels or fingerposts indicat- to junctions where the walker could leave ing the route of the marked path should be the marked path by mistake. For this reason, placed at the starting/ending points of the all junctions must be marked in both direc- route, at junctions and at other places along tions. the route as necessary. • A waymark indicating the correct direc- • Fingerposts and directional panels should tion should be placed no more than 10 m indicate one or more destination along the after the junction so that it is clearly visible marked route and the distance in km (miles) from the junction and indicates the change or hours. If a destination is shown on a of direction unambiguously. This mark is fingerpost or panel, it must be shown on all called the guidance mark. other subsequent fingerposts or panels until the destination itself is reached. • Another mark should be placed a little further along the correct route in case the guidance mark is destroyed. This is called the confirmation mark. 5 Waymarking in the European countries DESCRIPTION OF TEXT 1. State 2. Country or territory 3. Organisations performing the marking 4. The extent of the marked trails network 5. Marking system: 5.1 Footpath marking -.-. 1 Classification of marked paths -.-. 2 Kinds of marks -.-. 3 Fingerposts and signs showing a local destination -.-. 4 Walking-map and information boards -.-. 5 Special interest-trail informations boards 6. European long-distance and international paths 7. Walking maps PICTOGRAMS: Examples of waymarking in European regions Blue: Yellow: Green: Red: 6 A Austria 1. State from time to time passages with the risk Austria to fall as well as short, secured spots). Marking of the difficulty: 2. Country or territory Paths through the mountains: red spot. ... Unambitious paths or its sections: blue spot or no special marking at all. 3. Organisations performing the marking A black spot marks paths through the Several sections of the Oesterreichischer mountains (or parts of them), which are Alpenverein (OeAV) and the Deutscher narrow or with a risk to fall. There are Alpenverein (DAV) repeatedly secured passages or easy rock climbing areas. It is absolutely necessary Österreichischer Touristenklub (ÖTK), to be sure-footed and to have a good Headoffice: Bäckerstrasse 16, 1010 Wien, head for heights. tel: +43 1 512 38 44, [email protected] The marked paths are also numbered with one- to three-digit numbers as follow: Naturfreunde Österreich, • The numbers 01 – 10 mark the long- Touristenverein „Die Naturfreunde“ (TVN), distance trails which cross Austria Viktoriagasse 6, 1150 Wien, • The three-digit numbers stand for [email protected], the long-distance paths as well as the www.naturfreunde.at regional paths where at the hundred correspond to the Moriggl-system of the Municipal offices as well as several local mountain groups. tourism organisations. • The one- and two-digit numbers 1 – 99 are used to mark the local paths. 4. The extent of the marked trails network ... 5.1.2. Kinds of marks There will be installed horizontal, rectan- 5. Marking system gular markings with three stripes (200 mm long and 140 mm wide, e.g. on trees). 5.1. Footpath marking With the marking of the paths several The outside stripes with a width of 40 mm organisations are occupied so that not all are red and the stripe in the middle with markings are designed in the manner de- a width of 60 mm is white. Into the white scribed hereafter. On the initiative of the stripe the number of the marked path is national organisations there is at present written. Besides that there can be used an effort to standardise the markings into pressure-sensitive stripes in red-white-red the whole country. It concerns especially with the same width of all three stripes the standardized introduction of the same (80 mm) to stick them on the posts of the signposts which are used in Switzerland. signposts. This kind of marking uses yellow signposts Here and there are still red circle motives with a length of 600 mm (there of 60 mm on a white field which are replaced step point with time data), which are fixed on by step by the stripe-markings. places where the course of the marked trail is not obvious. In front of the name of destination is also a coloured spot (diam- eter 20 mm), which indicates the difficulty of the trail (see below). 23 4 5.1.1. Classification of marked paths Marked paths are divided into trails near the valley (with slight activity and not In areas with a close network of marked difficult character) and paths through the paths the marking can be carried out with mountains (mostly narrow and steeply, the same three-striped marking with white 7 outside stripes and coloured middle stripe 5.1.5. Special interest-trail information (white–colour–white). The guiding colour boards order can be red, blue, green or yellow Nature trails follow existing paths and lead correspondant to the significance. from stop to stop. On boards the specific characteristics of the area is pointed out. 6. European long-distance and international paths They run parallel to the long-distance paths 01, 03, 04, 05, 07 and 10 (the E5 runs on his own route). They are sporadically marked 5.1.3. Fingerposts and signs showing with rectancular boards (270 x 80 mm). local destinations The signposts serve as a basic element to secure a reliable course of the marked path. Europäischer Fernwanderweg 4 Pyrenäen-Jura-Neusiedler See-Balaton Every organisation which keeps the marked path in good condition decides independently which type of signpost will be used. This is the reason why the type 7. Walking maps of execution as well as the content of the Some cartographic publishing houses text can have significant differences. (Freytag & Berndt, Kompass-Verlag) publish walking maps with the network of The texts of the signposts are single-lined the marked long-distance paths as well as or multilined with distance information in regional paths. These maps can be pur- hours and minutes (in case of walking times chased into bookshops and tobacconists. less than 45 minutes). The next destination Moreover the „Bundesamt für Eich- und is indicated in the topmost line. The path Vermessungswesen“ publishes sheets of number is shown near the arrowhead.

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