Dabo is a municipality of Moselle, in the Grand Est region, 20 km south of Sarrebourg, on the border of the department of Bas-Rhin.
The vast territory of the locality (more than 48 km²) belongs to the western slope of the Vosges massif and ranges from 236 to 945 m altitude. Formed by sandstone, the subsoil has allowed the development of landscapes marked by erosion, so rugged, and forests where thorny shrubs are legion.
Under the Ancien Régime, Dabo is the seat of a county that belongs to several families dependent on the Dukes of Alsace then the Linange family whose heirs are based in Germany. From 1677 to 1697, after a coup de force by Louis XIV, the county of Dabo was annexed a time to France but it was definitively attached to it in 1793.
From this past, the small town consisting of a village and many hamlets and which now has about 2500 inhabitants has inherited a singular heritage but rich, which blends in a mid-mountain environment lined with exceptional natural sites. As a result, Dabo is a popular stop for green tourism enthusiasts.
It is its astonishing rock of the same name, the rock of Dabo, in pink sandstone, which is the jewel of the inheritance of the municipality. A singular natural site south of the village which rises to more than 650 m. Already a place of worship under the Celts, then under Gallo-Roman antiquity, it houses at its summit for several centuries a castle built in the Middle Ages to defend the county and mark its independence. It is this castle that Louis XIV besieged in the seventeenth century and finally shave. In 1825, a first chapel dedicated to Saint Leo (in tribute to Pope Leo IX from the region) is built, but weakened, it is rebuilt in 1892 in a Romanesque style. It houses a statue and the arms of the former pope.
The site has also become a formidable belvedere accessed via a relatively demanding walk. The view that awaits the visitor is a reward in the form of a panorama of the village, the forests, the Lorraine plateau and the Vosges summits. Access all year long. Price: 0.50 to 2 euros. Information on +33 3 87 07 47 51.
Other rocks formed several million years ago have also become unavoidable in the area, sometimes reserved for the most athletic hikers, but whose summits are splendid terraces overlooking the surrounding nature, but also on the rock from Dabo and the village... such as the Backofenfels lookout tower (740 m above sea level) and the Falkenfelsen climbing promontory (426 m). At the level of the latter, before climbing, a detour is needed to observe the remains of troglodyte houses prior to the nineteenth century and which gathered up to 80 inhabitants.
To see again, the site of Altdorf which housed the missing village of Oberzorn, the Roman cemetery of Beimbach with its astonishing gravestones or the monolith of Steinerne Mænnel.
All of these historic sites or curiosities and natural treasures punctuate a number of marked trails dedicated to hiking. Loops are also reserved for mountain bikers. Maps and information on the routes and their possible difficulties on +33 3 87 07 47 51.
Depending on a hike or a simple walk, a step can be very interesting to the local crystal factory which perpetuates a secular know-how via now more modernist designs (information +33 3 87 07 48 88) or, in the Zorn Valley, dedicated to Scottish Highland Cattle cattle, perfectly adapted to this green and humid ecosystem.
For the fishermen, ponds and rivers are numerous on the territory. Contact +33 6 89 23 45 77 to know exactly the suitable places and regulations to respect.
In another genre, for a game of tennis, it is possible to book a short at the local +33 6 42 55 73 38.
We conclude this rich overview by the parish church Saint-Blaise which dates from the eighteenth century but was enlarged in the twentieth and houses an altar of fine 18th century and a painting of the seventeenth representing the Assumption. The hamlets of the locality also have small churches or chapels that justify a stop...
