4 days of pure geological history — a tour through the Volcanic Eifel

The Western Eifel belongs to the geologically youngest areas of Germany. About 13,000 years ago, countless volcanoes were still romping about here, throwing magma into the sky and creating huge craters. Even today you can clearly explore the traces of this history in the Western Eifel - no wonder that it also bears the name Vulkaneifel. Particular highlights are the Maare, volcanic craters in the middle of the wide hilly landscape. When the Eifel was still volcanically active, hot magma touched lakes or swamps on its way to the surface. Sudden explosions occurred, resulting in deep craters in the landscape. Some of these maars are still filled with water today.

On your four-day roundtrip we guide you from Daun to the most exciting places in the Volcanic Eifel. It goes up to the Ernstberg, whose wooded slopes are littered with huge boulders of volcanic rock. You admire the Dauner Maare, three circular lakes formed in old volcanic craters. From the Vulcano platform on the Leyberg you get a unique overview of the exciting hilly landscape of the Volcanic Eifel. And in the Mürmes nature reserve you can explore an extensive dry maar.

In the four days you will cover a distance of around 63 kilometres and climb almost 1,400 metres in altitude. Since the hiking trails are all well developed, the tour is also suitable for occasional hikers. Most of our tours follow two of the most beautiful official trails around Daun: the first two stages are on the Volcano Trail and the remaining two on the Volcano Trail.

At all stage destinations you have a sometimes smaller and sometimes larger selection of guesthouses, inns and hotels. Since buses also run regularly between Daun, the first stage destination Neunkirchen and the second stage destination Schalkenmehren, you can also plan the first and second stage as a two-day tour or as a single day hike.

Daun, the starting point of the circular hike, can be reached from the train stations Cochem and Gerolstein with the RegioBus line 500 or, of course, by your own car.

Bus timetables can be found at vrt-info.de.