A former Electoral mill, the St. Wendelinus Chapel and a hiking route that passes through the village on the return: Saxler combines local history with hiking opportunities. The Antonius Trail offers shorter circular routes as well as longer day hikes and multi-day hikes. When planning, you can decide whether you want to focus mainly on discovering Saxler’s local history or include a wider range of hikes in the Volcanic Eifel region.
Mill Pond, Chapel and Wayside Shrines
Saxler’s history is closely connected with a former Electoral mill and three fishponds. The mill stood at the Mill Pond. Thus, the ponds, as well as the religious buildings, are part of the village’s historic character; the Mill Pond marks the former site of the mill.
The St. Wendelinus Chapel in Saxler dates back to 1716 and is dedicated to Saint Wendelinus. Its furnishings include hand-carved wooden benches. Two wayside shrines complement the historic buildings: they are designed as plastered masonry blocks with sandstone reliefs and probably date from the 18th century. The chapel and shrines represent different aspects of local history: a building with its own furnishings on the one hand, and smaller religious monuments with reliefs on the other.
Hiking the Antonius Trail
The Antonius Trail network caters to different hike lengths: it includes shorter circular routes as well as extended day hikes and multi-day hikes. Routes lead towards Gillenfeld, Winkel, Udler, Brockscheid, Demerath and Steineberg. If you are planning a specific connection, check the current route before setting out.
One specific circular route is the HeimatSpur Antoniusweg. It starts and ends in Ellscheid, reaches the Mürmes nature reserve west of Ellscheid and passes through Saxler on the way back to Ellscheid. This makes a clear distinction between the start and end point and the village the route passes through: Saxler lies along the return leg of this loop, while Ellscheid is the start and finish.
Mürmes on the HeimatSpur, the Volcanic Eifel as a regional destination
Mürmes is a nature reserve with a peat layer approximately four metres thick. Bogbean, the spotted orchid and round-leaved sundew grow there. Mürmes is also an important breeding ground for grasshopper warblers, garganeys and corncrakes. These natural features are part of the destination on the route described and complement the local history you can discover in Saxler.
Beyond Saxler, the Volcanic Eifel is designated as both a nature park and a UNESCO Global Geopark. The landscape of this wider region includes maar volcanoes, volcanic cones, lava flows and mineral springs. To date, 77 maars have been identified in the Volcanic Eifel; 350 eruption centres have also been counted, around 270 of them from the more recent phase. These regional geological features give a stay beyond the individual village its own thematic context.
The Volcanic Eifel Trails also offer hiking opportunities across the region. They are marked and signposted and include half-day hikes, day hikes and multi-day hikes. This allows you to include both shorter and longer hikes in your plans; the Antonius Trail information and the regional trail network represent different levels of the hiking offer.
Choose accommodation to suit your travel plans
When looking for a holiday apartment, it helps to first decide what you want to focus on during your stay: should Saxler, its local history and the HeimatSpur that passes through the village take centre stage, or would you like to plan additional hikes in the Volcanic Eifel? If you are considering several trails or stages, compare the location of each accommodation with the specific places you want to visit. This makes choosing accommodation part of your route planning, without presupposing any particular hiking connection.
Discover more destinations: Winkel, Demerath, Brockscheid, Ellscheid, Steiningen, Mückeln, Betteldorf, Darscheid.
Go to the regional travel overview: Daun.
