Last week we had the opportunity to hike six days of the Eifelsteig. The Eifelsteig is a 300 KM-trail from Aachen to Trier in Germany. It is one of the top-trails of Germany. And did it meet expectations? Yes! Most definitely!

The first time we heard of the Eifelsteig was about 4 years ago. We were on holiday in the Eifel and visited Manderscheid, a beautiful tiny village with a ruin of an ancient castle. We walked around the village through the woods. We noticed there were signs everywhere of the Eifelsteig. Back home, we found more info of the complete steig on their excellent homepage. At that point we decided we needed to hike this steig at least once!

6 days of the Eifelsteig

Since we only had 6 days, we did not have enough time to do the whole Eifelsteig at once. So, time for some decisions; what stages would be most interesting? One important thing was we needed to be able to get back to our starting point, where our car was. After studying the map for a while, we decided to depart from Gerolstein. Trier would be the end of our 6 days. Exactly 6 stages and the possibility the return to Gerolstein by train.

But not just hiking..

As you might know, I am preparing for something. Just hiking around in the Eifel for 6 days would not be enough to continue my preparations. Following this, we decided we where going to camp as much as possible. So, taking a tent, sleeping bags, food, stove and everything was an excellent way to train hiking with a 20kg+ rucksack.

The days

Hiking was great! The steig itself is very beautiful, I was surprised by the low amount KM’s we needed to walk over tarmac. Most paths lead through the forest. Views were stunning, and we fully enjoyed the (lack of) sounds in the forest. The Eifelsteig definitely met my expectations!

Was all great? Almost! In the end, we only camped two nights (Schalkemehren and Manderscheid), partly because of the rain. But mostly because campsites seem to be really rare at the Eifelsteig. Wild camping is forbidden in the Eifel, so we were reluctant to do this, even though I saw some really beautiful spots.

The summary, movie-style

During the hike I experimented somewhat with my freshly bought actioncam. I summarized the 6 days in a movie of over a little more than 120 seconds, see below. Enjoy!