Route 3 of the Mullerthal Trail in Luxembourg is a real hidden gem with castles, small villages, tranquil forests and trails along small rivers which rush over rocks towards the sea - simply beautiful!
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tl;dr
Are you more the viewing kind-of-type? Then brew a good ☕️ and put the Video on in 4K!
Day 1: Mullerthal - Blumenthal - Larochette
We start in Mullerthal on Route 3 and after a while we pass the Schiessentümpel waterfall again. We continue past it in a southern direction, climbing some stairs which take us high above the stream where we walk on a soft trail under green beech trees. It does not take long for beautiful rock formations to appear on the side of the trail, and I enjoy the view of them - it appears like a large wall, just very pretty! We cross a street and hike onwards to the Kalktuffquelle, two small pools which are “The Source of the Sandstone of Luxembourg” as a sign tells. It is a pretty spot and I spend some time taking photos and videos at it - there’s a handful of brown trouts swimming in the lower pool and Martin and me try to count how many we can see.
The clear and turquoise water of the spring is beautiful, and we understand why this is a popular spot amongst locals and hikers alike. Right now we have the place for ourselves, and no one is there to share it with us.
After many long exposure photos and videos we continue on the trail to Blumenthal, this time on a wooden bridge which runs next to the “Black Ernz” stream. As it has been raining the wooden planks are unbelievably slippery and we are very careful while hiking over them, sort of relieved when we reach the end and hike up into the forest again.
At the small Rippsmuer Swamp there’s a big wooden table and benches, and as we picked up some Picnic goodies from the Heringer Millen Tourist Centre in the morning we have a long and relaxed lunch - it’s even not raining, so we enjoy the good food we carried along. After Lunch we take a look at the small swamp, but as it is autumn there’s not much to be seen in terms of flowers and insects.
The trail continues on a forest road and we avoid large puddles of water along the tracks, but soon we’re back in the forest on a dry single trail. We make the small detour to the sun dial up on a cliff, but with the absence of the sun - it’s cloudy and grey - we simply continue hiking.
Green and wet beech trees surround us, and it is calm. There’s an occasional bird song, but mainly we only hear our own steps and the wind when it goes through the leafs of the trees. Along the ground we can see toadstools with their red heads and white dots on them through the ferns and undergrowth, and then it does not take long and we hike through a steep ravine down to the village of Blumenthal.
We cross the busy road next to the Black Ernz stream, and on the other side have again a short break. I do some stretching as I had some pain in my foot, but after taking off my shoes and air my feet I feel better and can continue. A trailrunner overtakes us on the path, which runs next to a meadow. Then the trail takes a turn to the right and climbs up into the forest, just to spit us out into a field, where we continue. We reach a pair of trees - an Apple and a Walnut tree, which are the highest point of today and are at the Houbierg view point. We can see Berdorf and its water tower in the distance.
On small tracks we walk between the fields and keep an eye out for the signs here in the open, but miss one and make a small detour before we find back on the track. Along the way we did pick some very tasty apples from a tree, a tasty snack and available in abundance in this region!
Soon we pass through the tiny village of Soup, and in this grey weather a warm soup would have been welcome! We’re now only concentrating on reaching Larochette - a view on the weather forecast says it might start to rain any time soon, and we’d rather avoid getting soaking wet. The next bit of trail is pretty, especially the sections which take us through a beautiful green tree tunnel and then high above the town of Larochette, from where we observe the castle which towers above it.
We hike down into the town, along the square and continue onwards to the Larochette Youth Hostel, which is located in a beautiful blue building not far from the centre of the village. We moved into our small apartment, and the usual spreading out of all gear so that it can dry, a warm shower and putting on the clean clothes which were waiting for us, thanks to the MoveWeCarry, the free service which transports your luggage from accommodation to accommodation while we only carried our day hiking gear!
Day 2: Larochette - Beaufort - Mullerthal
After a plentiful breakfast at the Youth Hostel we drop off the ∞ luggage again for MoveWeCarry and… decide to skip the next section to Beaufort. It’s raining so much, and with the morning section of the trail going over the highest part of the complete Mullerthal Trail, over fields without any protection from the forest, we simply take the free Bus to Beaufort.
When we arrive in Beaufort it still is raining so we continue to walk to the Beaufort castle - or actually castles, as there’s two next to each other. We buy a ticket for the guided tour which starts at 11:00 o’clock and explore in the meantime the old castle with its towers and dungeons!
It also was a good thing that we were wearing our ∞ waterproofs, as it continued to rain, and rain, and rain 🌧 I tried to hide away from the rain in the torture chamber and prison, but they’re not really very cozy places to hang out 😆
And then our Guided Tour started, and we went across a small bridge into the Renaissance Castle. We stood with our small group in the rain, listening to the Guide telling the Stories in Dutch and German, and then also got to go inside!
It is a very beautiful castle and I understand why my good friend Kathrin from Helsinki likes these castles so much. My favourite part was the garden, though - and we got to see it briefly in the pouring rain…
There was a lot of interesting things to see and the guided tour went quick - but at the end of it it stopped to rain! We ate the rest of our picnic lunch in the castle, tried the famous Cassero blackcurrant liqueur which is still today produced in the castle and then bade farewell to it, ready for hiking. As the Mullerthal Trail goes past the Beaufort Castle we didn’t have to go far till we reached the trail either, and soon we were again in the pretty surroundings of beech trees and rock formations!
I did not expect anything of this section of the trail, but was very positively surprised: It was gorgeous. The trail runs next to the small “Haupeschbaach” which offers lots of small waterfalls along the way, which meant: More long exposures! I carried the Sony a6600 camera, which Sony loaned me, on this section and it did really well with the long exposures, even if I didn’t have any Filters for it!
Now while I was very pleased about the possibility to take long exposures of the waterfalls, Martin was less enthusiastic about the constant breaks.
It was also busy on this section of the trail - a group of US Americans passed us, as well as some Dutch Hikers and a photographer who was here for the same reason as me. But this only seemed “busy” as we hadn’t seen other hikers on the other days, or as many. I guess on a sunny weekend it will be a lot more busy than on this rainy & wet October afternoon!
After a while we entered the Hallerbachtal, a narrow valley with the small stream running through it, and many wooden bridges making you cross from side to side. It’s a beautiful valley with impressive rock formations, but before long we left the forested valley and came out into an open, wide valley where we were greeted by black cows.
We passed the Mansion from ∞ Resident Evil on the way and were wondering what the kind people of the Umbrella Cooperation were doing up there, and were happy to put some kilometres between the centre of the Zombie outbreak and us. As the trails here down in the valley were great and it started to rain 🌧 again it didn’t take us long and to leave that Mansion on the hill behind us. Hiking along the fields and under the yellow leafs 🍂, with a light mist hanging in the air, it was beautiful. And so we were soon back at the Heringer Millen in Mullerthal and finished the Route 3 of the Mullerthal Trail.
Practicalities - Where to Stay, What to Eat and How to get Around
We stayed at the Hôtel-Restaurant Le Cigalon in Mullerthal for one night, where we also ate. It was a good room and tasty food, though the portions were possibly a bit small for hungry hikers =)
In Larochette we slept in an apartment at the Larochette Youth Hostel where we also ate. The food was really good, as was the service, and our small apartment was actually pretty large and a group of six could easily sleep in there.
As mentioned before, we only carried our hiking gear and our luggage was transported for free by MoveWeCarry - a service which is available to all hikers on the Mullerthal Trail, and an excellent service for those that do not want to carry everything from accommodation to accommodation.
At the Tourist Information Heringer Millen in Mullerthal you can buy a picnic basket with tasty local & regional food. If you still need some hiking boots, a day pack or umbrella - that you also can loan at the Best of Wandern station - for free! SO it’s definitely a good spot to start your hike, and also if you need more Infos.
Public bus transportation in Luxembourg is free. Jump on a bus to get from one corner of the country to the other one (it’s a small country, so easy to do). The busses are plentiful and seem to stop even in the smallest villages, so hiking the Mullerthal Trail - or skipping a section in the rain - is easy to do.
See all photos from all three Mullerthal Trails here and read about Route 1 and Route 2 of this fantastic trail!
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