Waterfall - Round

Circular route, start/finish: Kerpen town centre, length: 10.3 km, duration: 3 hours

A hike from the picturesque castle town of Kerpen to the popular Dreimühlen waterfall. The tour leads across open plateaus with meadows and fields and through diverse Eifel forests.

Kerpen Castle towers over the idyllic village. The castle was first mentioned in 1136.  The exact origins of the castle, which was built on a mountain spur, are obscure. It is documented in 1265, when Theoderich II of Kerpen gave the castle in fief to the Archbishop of Cologne, Engelbert II of Falkenburg. The castle was destroyed and rebuilt several times. From 1911 to 1941, the castle was home to the famous Eifel painter Fritz von Wille, whose grave is located above the castle.

Start in the centre of Kerpen. We leave the town in the direction of the reservoir, pass some old quarries and reach the highlight of the tour via agricultural forest and meadow paths: the Dreimühlen waterfall. It is named after the neighbouring Dreimühlen ruins. The Dreimühlen waterfall was formed from lime deposits of 3 carbonate spring tributaries of the Ahbach. When the railway line was built in 1912, the headwaters were combined and diverted. Since then, the water flows over the edge of the terrain, the carbonate-rich water releases carbon dioxide at the splash edge and the remaining calcium carbonate encrusts the colonising moss. Over a width of about 12 m, the chalky, cold water falls about 4 to 6 m deep to the Ahbach stream. From here, it is worth making a detour to the picturesque Nohner Mill in the valley, which invites you to take a short break.

We follow the path markings through the forest, cross the Kalkeifelradweg and the Mineralquellenradweg and reach Niederehe. The monastery building with church from the 12th century is worth seeing here. Opposite, the Schröder country inn invites you to take a break. From Niederehe, you cycle past seemingly endless agricultural fields back to Kerpen. Past the majestic castle and the many half-timbered buildings, we reach the starting point in the centre of the village.

Here you can find a video of the hike