Lontzen

The Lontzen panorama board is in front of the hiking junction node 63, north-west of the village of Lontzen in the district of Busch. A small pond with a bench invites visitors to take a break. A magnificent view extends out over a landscape of meadows and hedgerows all the way to Lontzen and Herbesthal. When the weather is clear, you can even make out the moorland of the 'High Fens' on the horizon, 23 kilometres away. A tip: don't forget your binoculars.

The composition of its soil and its reliefs show that the region around Lontzen belongs to the eastern foothills of the Pays de Herve, which lies in the north of the Province of Liège and marks the transition between the Belgian Ardennes and the Dutch Heuvelland. This hilly landscape is characterised by pastures and orchards enclosed by typical hedgerows. The hedges that separate the meadows are low and narrow. Their purpose was not to protect the properties against wind and weather as it was in the region around Malmedy. They were just boundaries for the herds of livestock. By tradition, dairy farming has been practised on the meadows of this region. Indeed it has that circumstance to thank for its name, the butterländchen ('butter country'). The landscape is punctuated by numerous untrimmed willows, ash trees and oaks.

The Lontzen-Herbesthal village history collection, in Lontzen's village community centre, is in the middle of the village square in front of St. Hubertus' Church. Here, everything that accompanied the citizens of the municipality of Lontzen throughout their lives has been collected; private objects, and occupational equipment too. Alongside events of the times, mining, agriculture and life in clubs and associations, the former station of Lontzen-Herbesthal is also one of the main topics from the past here. A room of its own has been dedicated to the last of these. Exhibited in it, among other things, are original items from the station building, no longer existent today. Furthermore, the collection has a wide range of literature about local history which can be consulted, or borrowed for limited periods. And entry is free! Opening hours: February - November: every 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month December + January: 1st Sunday of the month from 2 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

St. Hubertus' Parish Church in the Schlossstrasse, listed as a historical building, was built between 1768 and 1770 to plans by the architect Joseph Moretti. Standing half way up a hill above the road, it towers above many of the houses in the village. As early as the end of the 14th century, a Gothic church stood in the same place. St. Hubertus' Church is surrounded by a cemetery, which in turn is enclosed by an enceinte in accordance with ancient tradition. The sacristy and the tower at the front are the work of the architect Wildt and were built in 1902 and 1910 respectively. The typical, octagonal belltower also dates from that time. In its interior, the church is decorated and fitted out magnificently: an altar from the year 1776, 19th-century wooden panelling, and wall paintings from the beginning of the 20th century, some of them gold-plated, invite the visitor to come in and have a look round. St. Hubertus' Church is part of the network of open churches.

The history of Lontzen Castle goes back to the 13th century. At that time, there was a massive residential tower in the same place, but it was destroyed in 1288 in the War of the Limburg Succession. The well-fortified edifice that followed it suffered a similar fate in 1702, in the War of Spanish Succession. The ruins were demolished in 1746, and a two-winged castle was erected where they had stood, with eight axes and 50 rooms. In about 1845, the family of proprietors, from Eupen, had the late baroque building remodelled to cater to the tastes of the times. A later owner had the oriel added on the north-west facade, and that served as a chapel. However, a major fire in 1970 inflicted severe damage on the historical building. The stairwell and decorative wooden panelling were among those elements that fell victim to the fire. Subsequently, a man from Aachen purchased the gutted castle and had it rebuilt once again, largely true to the original. So today, the building with its striking oriel, its moats and its access bridge flanked by wrought-iron railings looks much as it must have done when its bourgeois occupants had had it converted in the 19th century. ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬The estate is now privately owned and can only be visited on the exterior.

The unique hedgerow landscapes around Lontzen can be explored on various hiking trails. One special feature of these hiking routes is the numerous hollow ways and stiegel paths. Since most of the roads in the Middle Ages were not paved, hollow ways cut deep into the surrounding countryside resulted from centuries of use with wagons and livestock and rainwater running off the land. Among the most beautiful are the Semmelgasse (junction node 36 going towards junction node 80), the Waugasse (node 93 going towards junction node 21), the Heesgasse (junction node 32 going towards junction node 4), the Hellendergasse (between junction nodes 12 and 92) and the Teufelsgasse (junction node 63 going towards junction node 12). Whilst these hollow ways are often relics of historical roads, the stiegel paths are in some cases very old footpaths which linked up the villages and isolated farmsteads. The so-called stiegel were openings made with wooden stakes or stones, often also little swing gates or revolving gates, which barred the way for grazing animals but allowed humans to pass. In Herbesthal, for example, a 7.5-kilometre stiegel path starts at the building known as 'Zur Alten Schmiede' at Tivolistrasse 11. Having said that, you frequently run into stiegel and hollow ways on all the hiking paths in the region. Hiking by junction nodes: https://www.ostbelgien.eu/en/walking/hiking-in-the-junction-node-system

Quarries characterise the surroundings and history of Walhorn. The sculpture route 'On the trail of the stones' has been created to remind us of that circumstance. Starting from the centre of Walhorn, it leads along a set hiking trail round the former quarry at Rotsch, now flooded. The bluestone sculptures were created by seven international sculptors at a symposium in the old quarry workshop. In the future, the plan is for the sculpture trail to grow successively with biennial symposia and mark the historical journey of the stones from the former quarry to their deployment in housebuilding in the village. Start: Teufelsgasse, diagonally opposite the Rolducplatz near the church.

Just a few meadows, a small hill and a railway line separate Lontzen from the hamlet of Rabotrath. Apart from a small chapel, there are a few farms. Yet in this idyll, the mining of calamine ores, typical of the region, has left its traces: as from the 15th century, open-cast mining was practised in Rabotrath. The calamine ores continued to be dug out at the surface right on into the 17th century. As from 1739, the miners proceeded more systematically, extracting the ore from 50 to 60 shafts. At about the end of the 19th century, mining in Rabotrath came to an end, and a unique fauna and flora established itself on the former pit site as the years went on. Metallophytes, which can only grow in soils containing heavy metals, flourish there. Particularly in May and June, calamine plants such as the yellow zinc violet blossom on the metalliferous soil. One of the most remarkable calamine meadows is right next to one of the information panels of the 'Via Gulia' hiking trail on the site of the former mine. Visitors can enjoy some magnificent views out into the distance from there too.

In the region around Lontzen, various quarries were worked for hundreds of years. In the ones at Lontzen itself, blue and grey limestone and brown dolomite stone were quarried. Both the quarries themselves, which have mostly been renaturalised today, and the stone which was extracted in them, continue to leave their mark on the landscape. In Lontzen, grey limestone buildings are to be seen over the whole of the municipality (e.g. Lontzen Castle), but there are also various edifices in dolomite (e.g. St. Anna's Chapel in Lontzen Busch). Now and then, buildings were also constructed with a mixture of these stones. The typical small windows of the manor houses, for example, were often framed in bluestone, whilst the walls of the buildings themselves were made in limestone or dolomite. Along the signposted 20-kilometre Galmeiveilchenweg ('calamine violet route'), hikers go past several of these historical quarries and numerous buildings in this traditional design.

When the railway line between Aachen and Liège was completed in the 19th century, Herbesthal became the first frontier station in Europe at which a railway line crossed an international border. Until 1920, the station was in Prussia and was operated by Prussian State Railways. As a consequence of the Treaty of Versailles, however, it was ceded to Belgium together with the region of Eupen-Malmedy. With its function as a frontier station, Herbesthal experienced a tremendous upturn: a customs office, several customs agencies, hauliers and grocers took up residence. A gasworks to supply the station, the many railway houses and the streets with town gas, and a school building and the community centre were erected. Next to the customs post at the station, an international postal collection office was also built at that time. With its magnificent interior, Herbesthal Station was regarded as one of the most beautiful in the whole of Europe. Sadly, hardly any of all that now remains. In the 1980s, the station and all the buildings that went with it were pulled down. Only the former parcel store behind the station building was spared, and that was converted into a clubhouse in 2017/2018. However, looking at charts that cover the area, one can well imagine how magnificent the building once was and the kind of international public that frequented it. A memorial puts one in mind of the many Jewish children who were taken to safer places on trains leaving Germany before the outbreak of the Second World War. In Herbesthal, many of them set foot in a country in which – for the very first time – they were not second-class citizens. Via the Pre-Ravel cycling trail, the former station building has a connection to the Vennbahn and the hiking trails to Lontzen and Walhorn.

From the 12th century until 1795, Walhorn was one of the five hochbanken in the Duchy of Limburg. The hochbanken were administrative and judicial units of the duchy. The lay assessors' court in Walhorn sat in judgement over life and death. On the Johberg, criminals sentenced by the court were executed on the gallows. There is a way of the cross there today. Not far from its 12th station, part of an upright that belonged to the gallows in former times (1626-1798) still stands.

St. Anna's Chapel in Lontzen-Busch is a Gothic gem from the 15th century. The original fittings and furnishings include the Flemish altar and the predella – the step on which the altar stands –, which also dates from the 15th century. On it, Christ and the apostles are depicted as half figures. The middle group on the altar depicts the crucifixion, whilst the sidepieces show scenes of the scourging, Jesus carrying the cross, the descent from the cross and the resurrection. The chapel is part of the network of open churches.

The Lindenplatz, in the centre of the village of Lontzen, invites visitors to sit down and have a nice rest, whilst a large wooden train invites children to come and play. A wagon reminds us of the zinc ore mining carried on in Lontzen between 1870 and 1940. The trilingual information panel standing next to it is part of the Via Gulia hiking route (from the source to the confluence) and communicates things worth knowing about those mining activities. Here, among other things, observers can learn why the French capital had an important role to play in the upturn and success of this local zinc mining. On the Lindenplatz, several signposted local circular hiking trails start, as does a 3-kilometre nature trail with 50 species of indigenous trees, bushes and shrubs. As well as that, the square is part of the cycling and hiking node system, which enables guests to navigate easily by nodes. Cycling and hiking routes are connected up by means of a number at the places where they intersect (nodes). Routes can easily be put together in advance with the route planner.