The Wolfsschlucht, a sandstone cleft on Echternach's doorstep

If you’ve only got one morning in Echternach and want to see why this region is nicknamed Little Switzerland, come here. The Wolfsschlucht is on the edge of town, and in under an hour on foot you swap whitewashed houses for a corridor between two mossy sandstone walls, so tall the sky shrinks to a stripe.

A gorge that water didn’t carve

The first surprise is that no river cut it. The Mëllerdall geopark explains that it was born from a large landslip. The Sûre was eating away at the foot of the valley while sandstone debris piled up above, and groundwater acted as a lubricant on the layer of clay marl underneath. Blocks at the edge of the Érelchen plateau tilted, stayed leaning or toppled over, and the gorge opened between them.

The walls are Luxembourg sandstone with the layers clearly visible. The government portal and the geopark give the gorge a depth of 40 m, while visitluxembourg talks of walls up to 50 m high. According to the geopark, the slipped material went far enough to push the course of the Sûre northwards. In the scree on the slope grows hart’s-tongue fern, which the park singles out on its page.

One of the geopark’s 22 geosites

The Mëllerdall geopark, which UNESCO recognised in April 2022, has 22 geosites, and the government portal picks out the Wolfsschlucht as one of the most impressive. The park notes that on the 1979 topographic map you can still make out the landslip zone from the irregular contour lines, which follow the bulges the slope left as it moved. On the ground you see towers of rock shifted in different directions and big blocks broken away from the wall. If you want to understand how the landscape of the Mullerthal region was made, this is all the lesson you need.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Echternach before prices climb.

How do you get there from Echternach?

On foot, which is how it’s best done. Route 2 of the Mullerthal Trail leaves the market square in Echternach, crosses the pedestrian zone and climbs to the Troosskneppchen viewpoint, with the town and basilica below. From there the path enters the woods and reaches the gorge. The same path also carries local route E1, 13.5 km, the Auto-Pédestre circuit, the Sentier National Maurice Cosyn, the Eifel-Ardennes trail and Felsenweg 1 of the Naturwanderpark delux.

By car, the nearest car park is Trooskneppchen, about 900 m away. By bus, the Echternach Ermesinde stop is 1.2 km off. I wouldn’t drive from the centre, because the walk in is half the fun.

Cleopatra’s Needle and the black dog

At the mouth of the gorge stands a tall spike of rock known as Cleopatra’s Needle. The name Wolfsschlucht, visitluxembourg says, was coined in 1881 by a walker from Trier. Before that, in the Echternach dialect, it was the Däiwelsschoart, the Devil’s Claw. The trail website prefers the wolves, which sheltered here when the region was dense, trackless forest.

Local legend tells of treasure hidden in the cleft, guarded by a black dog with glittering eyes, who is really a count that sold his soul to the devil for more gold. A child who throws a blessed rosary into the crack would free him and win the treasure. Two Echternach boys, the story goes, spotted the chest, ran off for a rosary and found it gone when they came back.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Echternach before prices climb.

What comes next

The Wolfsschlucht is the first big stop on Route 2, and most people treat it as an out-and-back from town. I’d keep going. The stretch to Berdorf is 6.8 km and, according to the trail website, threads a labyrinth of boulders, follows the Aesbach stream, passes the Perekop rock with its iron ladders, crosses the Chipkapass on a footbridge and reaches the Hohllay cave and the amphitheatre. Allow two to two and a half hours, and there’s a free bus back from Berdorf, since all public transport in Luxembourg is free.

Before you go

There’s no ticket or opening time, but there is damp rock and some natural steps, so boots with a good sole are worth it. In the hunting season it’s worth looking at geoportail.lu, which maps hunting grounds, as the Mullerthal Trail website advises. And in high summer I’d set off first thing, ahead of the heat and the groups.

If you would rather have a local show you round, book a guided tour in Wolfsschlucht and choose by the reviews.

A car frees you from timetables: search car hire in Luxembourg on DiscoverCars and compare companies.

So you do not pay over the odds, look at trains, coaches and flights to Luxembourg on Omio and pick the one that suits you.