There are times when it is probably better to be on your own when travelling.
Take Sunday, for example; I have my daypack filled with the necessities (lunch, water, raincoat, book, camera and notepad) ready for this week’s adventure. My plan is to return to Mechernich but this time find the Roman sites and see if I can understand what was going on. An aqueduct that runs 100km to Cologne? Seriously?
But this will be a 20km walk and, as I get off the train, the insistent drizzle becomes actual rain. Imagine trying to convince another tourist that ‘this will be fun’! Undeterred, I slip on the rain coat and head off to the first site.
Take Sunday, for example; I have my daypack filled with the necessities (lunch, water, raincoat, book, camera and notepad) ready for this week’s adventure. My plan is to return to Mechernich but this time find the Roman sites and see if I can understand what was going on. An aqueduct that runs 100km to Cologne? Seriously?
But this will be a 20km walk and, as I get off the train, the insistent drizzle becomes actual rain. Imagine trying to convince another tourist that ‘this will be fun’! Undeterred, I slip on the rain coat and head off to the first site.
This section of reconstructed aqueduct is simply stunning! It really begins to call out the scope and scale of this amazing project. It also drew my attention to a nearby signpost showing a walking tour that follows the entire 100km from North Eifel all the way into the metropolis of Cologne. If only I spoke German I could have googled ‘romerkanal-wanderweg.de’ and found the beautifully produced 20 page pdf booklet myself. Instead, I had to photograph the signpost and check it out when I got home. I keep getting these subtle messages to learn German and I keep ignoring them at my peril! But the benefit became twofold; firstly, on Sunday morning I now had a trail to follow. This is much better than following the googlemaps directions as they are simply the standard roads. And German provincial roads are not designed for pedestrians; and they are even less pedestrian friendly when it has been raining (trust me – there were a couple of close calls this weekend!) Secondly, it meant I could download the 20 pages of document, run some of it through an on-line translation device and give you some neat information. For example, the elevation at the beginning of the Roman water supply is about 450m and slides away to virtually nothing as it makes it to the Rhine in Cologne; this is about half of the usual 1:100 ratio but seems to have been made functional by the Romans. We’ll learn one of their tricks later in the piece.
You can climb to the top of the aqueduct and even today see some remnants of the original tunnel and certainly observe the cutting in the hillside where the watercourse made its serene way ever on to Cologne.
With the way signposted, I merrily trotted off with a light heart, oblivious to the rain as I now had a trail to follow ...
... and promptly became ‘geographically challenged’ (as AJP would say. I was never lost as I knew I was still close to the village of Vussem). In my defence, I will argue that the very first sign post I followed pointed in the wrong direction and it was only good fortune (and 30 minutes of bush bashing and much foul language) that I found another signpost and was back on the trail.
You can climb to the top of the aqueduct and even today see some remnants of the original tunnel and certainly observe the cutting in the hillside where the watercourse made its serene way ever on to Cologne.
With the way signposted, I merrily trotted off with a light heart, oblivious to the rain as I now had a trail to follow ...
... and promptly became ‘geographically challenged’ (as AJP would say. I was never lost as I knew I was still close to the village of Vussem). In my defence, I will argue that the very first sign post I followed pointed in the wrong direction and it was only good fortune (and 30 minutes of bush bashing and much foul language) that I found another signpost and was back on the trail.
This worked out well because the trail took me along the actual path of the aqueduct. I was actually heading ‘upstream’ but that’s fine; so you get to see little vignettes like this one. As near as I can tell, this little channel is the original line taking water to Cologne but on the right (and buried under the ivy) is another channel which diverts the runoff water from hillside, ensuring that the main channel is not contaminated in any way. This water is for drinking after all and the Romans went to great pains to keep it pure and clean.Or how about the Sammelbecken or Collecting Reservoir? The sign posts are latter day but this collection point allowed for water to in from Urfay and Dreimühlen and then on to Cologne. Ingenious!
But the ultimate came when I ducked into this little house almost at the top of the irrigation system. To be honest, there is a solid door that was closed and I thought, just my luck, I’m locked out just as the rain began to fall once more.
But the door opened and inside was this well house.
As near as I can make out, it seems that there was a spring in the square pool at the base of the well house. The water bubbled up and flowed from here out through the channels on the other side of the concrete walk way. This channel then flowed to further reservoirs where more water was sourced and added to the flow, ultimately winding along its 100km journey to Cologne.
And all of this done by Roman engineers using their funky counting system; for folks who never had the zero, it is amazing what they achieved.
Of course, there is always some who has to put their mark on things; graffiti is as old as the Romans anyway. But I did like this addition; it reads ‘Romani ite domum’ and translates as ‘Romans go home!’ I know this because it comes directly from ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’. For those who have studied Latin, the scene where the soldier corrects Brian’s attempt to write ‘Romans go home!’ is hysterically funny; absolutely how I remember my Latin grammar classes.
From here, i found myself near the little village of Kallmuth and still about 8-9km from Mechernich (with its warm railway station and coffee shop). As the rain began to fall, I thought I’d head directly north rather than the circuitous way I had come to this point.
As near as I can make out, it seems that there was a spring in the square pool at the base of the well house. The water bubbled up and flowed from here out through the channels on the other side of the concrete walk way. This channel then flowed to further reservoirs where more water was sourced and added to the flow, ultimately winding along its 100km journey to Cologne.
And all of this done by Roman engineers using their funky counting system; for folks who never had the zero, it is amazing what they achieved.
Of course, there is always some who has to put their mark on things; graffiti is as old as the Romans anyway. But I did like this addition; it reads ‘Romani ite domum’ and translates as ‘Romans go home!’ I know this because it comes directly from ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’. For those who have studied Latin, the scene where the soldier corrects Brian’s attempt to write ‘Romans go home!’ is hysterically funny; absolutely how I remember my Latin grammar classes.
From here, i found myself near the little village of Kallmuth and still about 8-9km from Mechernich (with its warm railway station and coffee shop). As the rain began to fall, I thought I’d head directly north rather than the circuitous way I had come to this point.
It all worked out but there were a couple of moments where I wondered just where the hell I was. Remember, the roads just aren’t pedestrian friendly at all so I found some small roads and tracks and headed effectively cross country. Unbeknownst to me, I was walking past the site of Mechernich’s main claim to fame some 100 years ago; the mines. Walking along, I happened past a series of noticeboards (where these historical photos have been lifted from) and it’s only in retrospect that you can imagine how terribly and terrifyingly the land was laid waste back in the 1920’s to recover the ores here.
There were deposits of Manganese and other minerals but it seems the big metal to be mined was Lead. As the pictures show, look how the land was devastated almost a hundred years ago.
Mining ceased in the late ‘50’s and since then, many of the open cut mines have been used as rubbish dumps and it is really only since the 80’s that the recovery of the landscape has begun to kick in.
Note the before and after shots taken from the sign posts.
A really interesting day; the ingenuity of Roman engineering and how 2,000 years has virtually hidden their accomplishments contrasted with the Lead mines and how 50 years still hasn’t been long enough for the scarred landscape to fully recover.
There were deposits of Manganese and other minerals but it seems the big metal to be mined was Lead. As the pictures show, look how the land was devastated almost a hundred years ago.
A really interesting day; the ingenuity of Roman engineering and how 2,000 years has virtually hidden their accomplishments contrasted with the Lead mines and how 50 years still hasn’t been long enough for the scarred landscape to fully recover.
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