Recht

The panorama board is situated between points 45 and 97 in the junction node network at the Batzborn. A bench invites you to stop for a rest and offers a fantastic view out over the village of Recht, which lies on the floor of the valley, and the hilly Ardennes.

The slate mines in Recht were built in the mid-1880s by the Margraff brothers to mine slate for roofing. In the two tunnels, they extracted an approximately 480-million-year-old bluish slate, Recht bluestone. Unfortunately, Recht bluestone was not suitable for the production of those very thin roof tiles. But it did have other excellent qualities: it was extremely weatherproof and resistant against environmental influences. For that reason, Recht bluestone was used for creations in religious art, but also processed to make troughs for making sour cabbage, and tanning basins in the leather industry. Decorative examples can still be found in the doorway arches of the nearby presbytery and the entrance portal of the church opposite it. Having said that, the slate mines were abandoned after just some 20 years because they were no longer profitable. Over time, they began to collapse, but the lower of the two was restored at great effort on an honorary basis and is home today to a mine that does tours for visitors and is attached to the Recht Bluestone Museum. Here, visitors can get a great impression of the galleries created by such hard work, and experience numerous Recht bluestone products and tools.

The cycling route between Vielsalm and Born is part of the Ravel cycling network in East Belgium. It runs along the former railway line 47A, is 20 kilometres long and joins the Vennbahn cycling route in Born. The latter runs over a length of 125 kilometres from Aachen to Ulflingen in Luxembourg. The railway line 47A was laid in the First World War by the German occupying forces to create a connection between the Vennbahn line and the line from Liège to Luxembourg. It was intended to provide logistical support for the advance of the German troops towards France. After the demolition of the Hermanmont viaduct in 1940, the line was only used part of the time. From 2013, the former railway line was converted into a cycling path and now forms part of the 220-kilometre East Belgian Ravel cycling network. This makes it possible to travel in a relaxed manner, without any climbs worth mentioning, on disused railway lines, away from the road traffic, right through the middle of Nature in the hilly Ardennes.

St. Aldegundis' Parish Church was built in the 15th-16th century. The nave of this former Gothic church was extended in 1753 in the baroque style. In 1925 the old nave was removed and a new one, with a choir, was built perpendicular to the old axis. The walls of the tower and the old choir – today's side chapel – are remnants of the Gothic edifice. The baroque spire and the front buildings to the right and left of the tower are in fact remnants of the baroque nave. The beautifully worked windows from the 20th century deserve special attention. They are characterised by clear lines and expressive painting. The depictions featured in them include the Mother of God and St. Aldegundis and the heraldic figures of the von Reiffenberg and von Rolshausen families. The patron saint of the church is St. Aldegundis, who was born in France in about 630 and founded the Abbey of Maubeuge. She is honoured in particular in northern France, Belgium and along the Rhine and called upon as a patron in cases of illness, particularly cancer. The organ, which has 15 registers, was built in 1997 in the Thomas organ builders' workshop in Ster (Belgium). The stone frame of the entrance portal of the church and the doorway arches of the nearby presbytery are also remarkable. On the southern retaining wall of the church there are a number of imposing crosses from the former churchyard with typical depictions from the 18th and 19th centuries. The diversity of these crosses also reveals the whole bandwidth of the craftsmen's tradition. Whilst the oldest ones are embellished very artistically, the ornamentation becomes less and less in the more recent ones.

At the crossroads in the centre of the village of Recht there is a procession chapel, which was erected in 1784 in honour of the Mother of God. Inside, there is a wall relief in slate, depicting St. Odilia. She is honoured as the patron saint of eyesight, since she was born blind but regained her sight on being baptised. Adjacent to the procession chapel, a memorial was erected to the victims of the two World Wars who came from Recht. Rather striking is the life-sized angel by the artist S. Norga, who is depicted writing the names of the victims of the First World War. Two other stone tablets record the names of those killed in action, those who had gone missing, and the civilian victims of the Second World War. Moreover, in front of the memorial, a plaque was erected for two men killed in action in the war of 1870/71.

In the 'Am Hunnert' district, seven stations of genuflection line the road that leads up to the wood. These are reliefs from the Passion of Christ, chiselled in blue slate, which were erected in 1831 at the behest of a private foundation. The procession to the seven stations of genuflection is one of the oldest forms of the Way of the Cross. The rogation procession got its name from the custom of kneeling down at each station. The seven stations were mostly visited for the spiritual salvation of the deceased and to help to make it easier for those who were terminally ill to depart this life.

The community bakehouse in Recht was built in about 1840, probably by the Tyrol stonemasons' families Zangerle, Starck, Graf and Meyer, who had settled near a slate quarry between 1725 and 1735. On the walls of the bakehouse the layers of slate can still be seen clearly. The weathered shale is an indication that the stone came from the upper levels of the mine, the stone from the lower levels being much more compact. The bakehouse consists of the main room, in which the work used to be done, and a lower annexe, in which the actual oven is situated. The oven consists of building bricks, fired bricks and a concrete floor plate. In front of it, the chimney rises in the main room. The lower part is built in the manner of a corbel made of shale, with brickwork above it. The walls of the bakehouse are made of rough shale and clay. By contrast, the embrasures of the doors and windows are made of hewn shale blocks. During works being carried out in the vicinity of the bakehouse, a deep well was discovered on the south side with a massive shale frame. The community bakehouse has been listed as a historical monument since 1994.

In the Middle Ages, a road that was of great economic importance, the Great Luxembourg Highway, ran through the Ardennes from Luxembourg via Stavelot to Liège. It ran to the west of the village of Recht, and from 1815, it formed the border between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Prussia. Wooden posts marked the boundary line. Following Belgium's declaration of independence in 1830, the line became the Belgian-Prussian border, and a little later it was marked with boundary stones. Some of those historical boundary stones can be explored on a walk around Recht. A good idea to do so is walking according to the junction node system: the nodes are numbered crossroads on the hiking routes. At each node, the hiker can always continue in at least two directions. Setting off from a starting node that they select, hikers can take an easy, well signposted walk from one node to the next, following numbers noted down beforehand. Between nodes 1 and 85 to the west of Recht, the signposting follows the historical boundary line. A few of the boundary stones can still be discovered at the wayside today. Hiking route planner: go.ostbelgien.eu