オーバーコステンツの天然記念物・トップ20

Slightly hidden under the rocks

The little detour from the Traumschleife Domblick down here is definitely worth it - it really is only a few steps.

A very beautiful idyllic place

The Simmerbach is a river in the Hunsrück, about 57 kilometers long and flowing in alternating southerly directions, in the two Rhineland-Palatinate districts of Rhein-Hunsrück and Bad Kreuznach. On the approximately 17 km of its lower course from the confluence of the Lametbach in Gemünden, the river is also called Kellenbach. It flows into the Nahe from the left near Simmertal. Source: Wikipedia

Natural monument No. 113 of the Birkenfeld district According to tradition, the juniper heath covered more than 60,000 square meters at the beginning of the 20th century. However, the residents reduced it to 1/6 of its area by the mid-1930s. Due to the lack of doormats available at the time, the juniper was used as a doormat. This “request” of the population was then put to an end in 1939. In the Trier government's official gazette dated July 1, 1939, the remaining area was placed under the protection of the Reich Nature Conservation Act. The area has been grazed by sheep since the mid-1990s. With the help of the then upper state maintenance authority of the Koblenz district government (the costs were borne by the district government), gorse and hawthorn were removed from the entire area and the existing dilapidated fence was replaced with a new one.

Natural monument No. 111 of the Birkenfeld district The Krummenau Imperial Oak is certainly one of the most impressive trees in the entire Hunsrück. At the beginning of the 90s the oak was subjected to “tree surgical renovation”. Rotten branches were removed and deep cracks, some of which were caused by lightning strikes, were sealed with a special compound. Today it can be seen that this measure has brought only moderate success. At that time (1990) the tree was estimated to be around 370 years old. This means that the oak is likely to “crack” today at the 400 year mark. The trunk circumference is now approx. 6.43 meters (measured 1 meter above ground level on September 18, 2011 on the occasion of this year's fruit wine hike). The height is estimated to be 25 meters.

The approx. 10 m wide weir with a fall height of approx. 2 m was converted into a rough ramp with a low-water channel in 2006 as part of the Blue+ campaign as a renaturation measure. A stepped path takes you from the hiking trail to the bubbling Simmerbach and you can let your eyes wander on a rest bench.

The Altlay Marian Grotto The Mariengrotte was built in 1957. The initiator was the teacher Karl Schön, who was transferred from Moritzheim to Altlay in 1956. On his walks through the Altlayer forests, the idea came to him to build a grotto at this water point. The cladding for the construction of the dome was made by Jakob Biserloh, a carpenter by trade. The grotto was built by the then 17-year-old Dieter Meurisch and the 19-year-old Josef Pauli. The building material, bricks and sand, was transported on the spot by the Altlayer youths (pupils of Mr. Schön) with the help of Werner Pauli and Paul Storms using a tractor and trailer. The iron lattice urrd decorations were made by Paul Storms (he worked as a locksmith's apprenticeship at the ore mine in Altlay) and his teacher Roni. The statue of the Virgin Mary made of red sandstone was bought by teacher Schön in Maria Laach. He carried her in a backpack on his back on his motorcycle from Maria Laach to Altlay. The panels that are attached to the walls come from bells that asked for intercession about a matter at the Grotto Maria, and whose prayers have been answered. The first panel comes from the Reinhold Heib family, whose son fell down a steep mountain slope with the tractor and, as if by miracle, survived the accident unscathed. Source: Text information board