ヴェルショイドルフのおすすめウォーキング＆ハイキングルート

A beautifully situated forest playground with good parking facilities.

The former Electoral Hunting Lodge in Welschneudorf is today a dual complex consisting of a church and the village community hall (Elector's Hall). Originally built as a hunting lodge for the Electors of Trier, the building later served as a village school and teacher's residence before acquiring its current dual function. Two coats of arms belonging to Johann Phillip von Walderdorff still adorn the east and west sides of the building.

Scan the QR code and you can listen to the recording, even if you're not hiking the Köhlerweg trail. 😉

The term Barbaricum, in connection with Welschneudorf, refers to the area of the present-day Westerwald region, which during Roman times lay outside the borders of the Roman Empire (the Limes) and was inhabited by Germanic tribes. The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, which marked the border, ran in an arc around the summit of the Weißen Stein (White Stone) in the immediate vicinity of the village.

According to an old legend, three charcoal burners perished in an accident at this spot. Numerous charcoal kiln sites can still be seen in the area today. Here you can learn a great deal about the lives of the charcoal burners and the work involved in making charcoal.

Abandoned quarries, including those at Weißen Stein, bear witness to the extraction of quartzite and quartzitic sandstone, which were used as building materials. Until the 1930s, basalt columns were quarried at the Großer Dielkopf, primarily for road construction. There is also evidence of the extraction of pumice sand, a sought-after aggregate for mortar, as well as clay, which was used for house construction. Numerous bowl-shaped depressions (clay pits) can still be seen in the forest today. Deposits of limonite (brown iron ore) are also known to exist. Source: www.qr-kultur.de - Geology of the Westerwald

The "Pfaffenholz" forest once stretched southwest from the Großer Dielkopf to the Weißen Stein and likely also encompassed parts of the present-day village to the southeast. Records of this section of the forest can be found in medieval documents that record changing ownership since 931/949. From the 11th century onward, clergymen were referred to as "Pfaffen" (from the Greek "papas" = cleric), from which the name of the forest is probably derived. Sources: School chronicle of the Welschneudorf local group, and www.regionalgeschichte.net (Esterau Local History and Mining Museum)

A hiking parking lot right next to the forest playground. From there, you can plan great hikes toward Bad Ems, the Lahn River, or the surrounding area.