Euro-Roadtrip 2026 Day 4: Waterfalls, Caves & Vianden – Exploring Luxembourg's Mullerthal Region with Kids
- Aug 10
- 7 min read
On day 4, we started with an amazing lie-in until 8am, threw together a quick breakfast of cereal and strawberries, then packed up and reluctantly cleared out of the wonderful Hu Birkelt holiday village in Larochette, Luxembourg, bound for a crazy-busy day of waterfalls, caves, castles and cities!
Schiessentümpel waterfall
We finally hit the road at around 9:45am, with our first stop in the Mullerthal region to check out the famous Schiessentümpel waterfall.
We parked at the CR121 parking area, from there it’s only around a 500m woodland walk to the waterfall, crossing stepping stones and little bridges through beautifully shaded forest.
The gorgeous old stone bridge makes a remarkable backdrop to the three little falls directly below it. After walking across the bridge and down the steps, you can get right down beside the water, wade through the shallows, climb on the boulders and pose for photos.
Thus far on the trip everywhere has been almost completely devoid of people – just as we like it. However, it turns out all the people are, in fact, at Schiessentümpel, and there was a bit of a queue to get a nice picture!
Still, the whole thing was easily done in around an hour.
Our route back unexpectedly took us through a gorgeous children’s play area built into the landscape, with water pumps and dams running between the rock crevices. Really nicely done, and there are free, clean toilets here too.
Into the caves…
We then headed back to the car and onwards to the Kuelscheier, about ten minutes up the road, aiming for the Consdorf parking at Op der Gare, Rue Dielchen.
To be honest, I was in two minds about this one. We LOVE a cave, and following Max’s Year 6 residential trip to Wales, gorge walking and caving were pretty much all he talked about! But we were already an hour behind our itinerary, the temperature was hitting 30°C by around 11:30am, and – unusually for me – we were somewhat lacking in research.
We decided to go for it and sacrifice one of our afternoon stops if necessary.
The first car park was full, but we managed to park for free in a roadside lay-by almost opposite the start of the trail and followed the signs for the C2 / Adventure Kuelscheier route.
The full C2 loop is around 4.2km and officially takes about 1 hour 15 minutes. It begins innocently enough on a flat, wide gravel-and-sand path through the woods.
After 10 mins or so you can see a small cave up to the right; you can scramble up tree roots to have a peek. Back on the main path, shortly after this small detour, you’ll see a trail up to the right. This takes you above the main path, running parallel to it but higher along the cliff face, and eventually leads you through Kuelscheier, Rittergang and Déiwepëtz.
And this was where things got REALLY fun!
All three are stunning and fairly unusual rock formations: enormous splits in the sandstone cliffs that the hiking route takes you straight through the middle of.
The passages are around 50-100m long, completely dark and extremely narrow in places – down to around 40cm. Only one person can pass at a time, and there are sections where you need to turn sideways, duck, squeeze through and remove bags to fit.
What an adventure!
4-year old Willow was understandably a little nervous when she saw the first dark passage, but she soldiered on and by the time we reached the subsequent two she was thoroughly enjoying herself - and very proud!
Kuelscheier itself also involves climbing up and down makeshift steps in absolute pitch blackness. Watch your head – it’s surprisingly easy to smack yourself in pretty much every direction in there (as I can attest to!).
Thankfully this section is one-way, with the trail clearly marking the “entrée”, so you shouldn’t find yourself halfway through a 40cm-wide crevice with another person attempting to come the opposite way. It was also blissfully quiet, and we encountered very few other people.
Top tip for the C2 Kuelscheier hike: bring head torches! Phone torches will technically work, but proper torches make it considerably more fun – and are much easier if you need a free hand to feel your way along the rock or hold onto a small child.
When we eventually emerged, finding the nearby Picnicplatz was slightly confusing. There was absolutely no phone signal here, so downloading an offline Google Map beforehand would be a very good idea.
Eventually the trail broke out into a little clearing, with a shallow stream bubbling past a few picnic benches and a hut containing information boards. We ate our packed lunches here in the shade and washed our absolutely disgusting hands and faces in the stream (the insane drought had turned the entire walk into dust and we were completely filthy!). Still, it rather added to the adventure!
We then realised that the loop deposited us back onto the original wide, flat trail, which meant the walk back was an absolute cinch; flat and much faster. We played a few memory games with the kids and enjoyed the easy stroll back to the car.
Cave stop number two
Our next stop was another small cave, Hohllay / Huel Lee, conveniently just another ten minutes up the road by car.
This one is completely different; it’s man-made! The old millstone workings, carved into the rock over centuries (since Roman times!), have created a huge hollowed-out cavern.
Parking is only around 200m away, so there’s almost no commitment involved. Put “Parkplatz Huel Lee” into Google Maps – it’s on Rue d’Echternach, L-6550 Berdorf, on the road between Berdorf and Echternach.
Part of the formation has been turned into an amphitheatre, which the kids LOVED. They immediately put on a little show for us, running around the cave and performing on the stage while Andrew and I took five minutes to rest our increasingly weary and extremely hot feet!
Vianden
Next stop was the iconic Vianden Castle, around 30 minutes north towards the German border. In fact, the route snakes in and out alongside Germany in places, which the kids enjoyed spotting on the map.
The streets of Vianden itself were gorgeous: colourful buildings, cute wooden doors and, once again, remarkably empty and quiet.
We had originally planned to buy tickets to explore the castle itself, including its armoury and stately rooms, but by now we were so far behind schedule that we didn’t arrive until around 2pm, with another two-hour drive still ahead of us.
Given the heat – and our successful run of not spending a penny on attractions for the previous 36 hours – we decided to sunscreen-up and brave the chairlift instead.
We parked at Parking Larei, right beside the ticket office and lift station, and after a brief queue, boarded for the roughly ten-minute journey to the top.
I HATE chairlifts.
Even the kind where you’re safely enclosed inside a box. And this was most definitely not one of those.
We had to split up, with me taking the four-year-old and the 11-year-old, and I was already slightly flustered about how this was going to work when the chairs appeared to be specifically designed for two people.
The lady loading us explained that Willow would sit in the middle with the safety bar between her legs and…we were off! I detested almost every minute of it.
But, as I kept telling the kids, in travel and in life, often the best things are waiting at the end of a nightmare journey. They, meanwhile, thought the whole thing was brilliant and thoroughly enjoyed poking fun at me.
And the view at the top rather proved my point.
We were treated to spectacular vistas across the valley, with the river below, the dam to one side and Vianden Castle sitting magnificently on the opposite hillside.
It was also rather lucky we’d decided against touring the castle because I’d incorrectly assumed the chairlift would deposit us somewhere near it.
It absolutely does not!
The lift essentially climbs the large hill opposite the castle. This gives you fantastic views of the castle, but leaves you nowhere near the castle itself. So, if you want to do both, they’re really two separate activities: park in town for the chairlift, then drive and park nearer the castle for your visit.
We took some photos and headed back for the return chairlift. Return tickets are optional and I’d originally suggested walking back down to save money, but thankfully Andrew had rather more sense. It was now 33°C, we’d already done several hours of hiking, climbing and squeezing ourselves through caves, and our sweat glands had had quite enough.
Overnight in Belgium again
We arrived back at the car at around 4pm. Our accommodation was still a two-hour drive north – a very cheap dive in a semi-abandoned country club in La Calamine, Belgium – so we finally accepted that our planned final stop of the day, Aachen in Germany, was now a step too far. We needed food. So, we abandoned Germany for the day and headed straight to our Airbnb, arriving at around 6pm.
Our accommodation, unfortunately, was considerably less impressive. It was a 1950s/60s apartment; given the price and previous reviews, weren't expecting luxury. It was clean, but dated, poorly equipped and rather frustrating for self-catering – including a freezer so iced-up that we had to excavate it before putting our food away!
Thankfully, our preparation saved us. Feeling extremely grateful for our stella organisation - Andrew had cooked a chicken korma the night before – all we needed to do was make some rice, dry-fry the naan breads and microwave the curry before collapsing around the table to reflect on an absolutely awesome fourth day.
Goodbye, Luxembourg
Our overriding thought as we wound down from the day was simply how much we'd loved Luxembourg.
The roads are pristine. Every house seems immaculate, without a blemish. At times the entire country looks as though it was built last week. There are barely any people, barely any cars, and everything feels peaceful, quiet and ridiculously well maintained.
Naturally, within a few hours of arriving I'd already done my standard “Could I move here?”. A quick bit of research revealed that property prices per square metre are among the highest in Europe, so… probably not. But they certainly seem to be doing something with the money: free public transport, free toilets, loads of free parking and beautifully maintained forests, trails, playgrounds and public spaces.
We'd arrived in Luxembourg expecting it to be one of the smaller stops on the road trip – another country to explore for a couple of days before moving on. Instead, it had completely surprised us.
We never made it to Luxembourg City, yet I wouldn't change those two days at all.
We'd walked barefoot through forests, scrambled through pitch-black caves, paddled beneath waterfalls, picnicked beside streams, terrified ourselves on a chairlift and spent an entire afternoon doing almost nothing at Hu Birkelt.
Perhaps that's why we loved Luxembourg so much. The best bits weren't really things we'd planned at all.
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