The cards tell the story. The stones make it real. But you have to walk them.
IBeing
IIThe path
IIIThe challenge
IVThe trace
VThe insight
This is where you stand – in the warmth, in the familiar, right in the middle of your now. But warmth makes you sluggish: habits grow heavy, questions are left lying, and what once moved you slowly falls asleep. You haven’t moved yet. But you have looked outside.
Every path begins in the snow outside your door. Gretyl Paths are real paths through the forest – each with a question in its luggage: movement, mind, forest or heart.
Not everything that glows is a home. Along the way, the next gingerbread house tempts you with warmth and habit – and who knows who’s already stoking the oven inside. The path asks you to walk on past it – out to where it gets quiet and uncomfortable.
A cairn says: someone has been here before – perhaps only you yourself, on another day. You’re on the right track. Our stones are signs like these – found, marked, left behind. Unlike breadcrumbs, no bird eats them.
Beyond the village, between the trees, a different light shimmers. What you find there isn’t on any map – but you take it home with you.
The pictures are storytelling – the paths are not. Gretyl Paths follow real paths through the Black Forest, with climbs, weather and tired legs. And what happens to you along the way is real too: whoever moves out of the familiar looks back differently.
What organisations call transformation or change management follows essentially the same pattern: a conscious look at the current state, a departure, resistance, points of orientation and, in the end, experiences that last. gretyl promises no miracles. But paths that work – for you alone or for your team.
Long before you set off, the path is already there – as a thought, as a line on an old map, as a quiet question waiting somewhere between the trees. Gretyl devised these paths for you to walk: through mist and pine forest, over ridges and past still waters.
And along the way, where you least expect it, lie stones. Marked, silent, patient. Whoever finds one didn’t just happen to look.
What you bring back from your paths, we collect on this map. Every name on it is a find – a trace that someone laid before you. Follow it.
5 finds are already on the map. Follow a name – or add one yourself.
Hermann · 10/2026
Ich muss zugeben - Ihr habt recht. Einfach mal raus und atmen. So einfach und dennoch etwas besonders. Auch wenn es nur der Stadtwald war.
Hannah · 10/2026
Bin durch den Wald gegangen auf der Suche .... Keine Ahnung. Aber habe mich von Euch inspirieren lassen. Und ich glaube ich habe etwas gefunden. Danke.
Susanne · 10/2026
Wanderin · 10/2026
Ich bin um den Albstausee gegangen. War schön. Danke Dir, gretyl.
Christoph · 10/2026
What elsewhere is called a review or rating – on Airbnb or Google, for example – we call a find. Every title on this map comes from a person who has walked one of our paths or been our guest. We don’t write any finds ourselves and we don’t buy reviews.
A find can be one of three things: a few words of feedback, news of a stone you found, or a voluntary amount, comparable to a tip. Words appear on this map; stones that have been found are shown further down on the find map where they were found – both only if the sender agreed to publication. We read every submission before approving it and occasionally shorten it without changing its meaning. Most finds so far are in German.
Send a find yourself
Our stones are neither bought nor manufactured. We find them on our paths, mark them by hand – with a word, a symbol or a number – and place them where someone is meant to find them.
Handmade, a little imperfect. Just like the paths themselves.
A small golden signature of crumbs and pine needles. Not a code – more like a trail of breadcrumbs that eventually fades and makes you curious. Now and then we leave a few stones too.
Some stones carry a number – and lead to a Gretyl card and to the next path. Basically, though, your map simply takes shape inside you as you explore paths.
The stone is not your prize – because you place it back again. Your prize is what the stone teaches you.
We place hand-painted stones in the Black Forest, along our paths. They are traces: each carries a word or a number. With this code, you can call up a short insight here on the website – a thought, a question, an impulse.
But the actual insight comes neither from the stone nor from the website. It arises in you – not through finding, but through walking.
In organisational development, this is called experiential learning: change has a lasting effect when it is experienced and reflected upon yourself, rather than just explained. The stone is an impulse from outside, an anchor point for reflection. The change of perspective, the step out of the comfort zone into the learning zone and the experience of self-efficacy – nobody can do that for you. Not out there – but within you.
The map comes from OpenStreetMap. It only loads when you click – OpenStreetMap then learns your IP address. More about this
One stone has already been found.
Did one of our paths lure you outside? Then send us a find in return – a few words about where the path took you, news that you found one of our stones, or a small thank-you in coins.
What did you experience, what has stayed with you? Give your find a title – with your permission, it may end up on our map above.
Have you found one of our stones? Tell us about it: what’s written on it, where was it lying? Perhaps this is where your story with gretyl begins.
As much as the path was worth to you. Voluntary, with nothing in return – it helps us find, mark and lay new paths.
coming soon We’re setting this up right now.
