Detailed Travel Guide to the ‘Valley of the 7 Castles’ in Luxemburg!

Everybody that has driven through Luxemburg has seen, at least once, the sign of ‘La vallée des 7 châteaux’ or in English ‘the valley of the 7 castles’. Now if you’re a bit a castle freak like me you probably became curious about what this valley is all about. That’s exactly the reason that me and some friends went to check out the valley. If you’re not up for reading all this, check below the video of our castle exploration in Luxemburg.

How to explore the 7 castles in Luxemburg?

There are several ways of exploring this valley, the most common one, I’m guessing, is to hike it. Be aware that it is 34 km ONE way. Yes indeed 34 km or 21.1 miles, this is definitely not an amateur hike. For exactly that reason we decided to visit the castles with the car. All the châteaux are easily accessible with a car except one but I’ll get to that in a minute.

When you just want to see the castles without hiking, below I included all the GPS coordinates nicely layed out in a Google map for your convenience.

If you’re courageous enough and you want to hike the trail, there is an official brochure that shows how to do the hike.

Now, what you need to know about the castles?

First of, you can’t go inside any castle on this trail, at least not at the time we did the tour (September 2018). For some castles it is possible to enter but only when you book in advance. Furthermore some are just ruins or leftovers of what once were castles.

Brief description of each castle in the 7 castle valley in Luxemburg

1. Château Koerich : I would advise to check out the church next to the castle, it’s much nicer than the castle actually.
2. Burg Simmern : here you can’t see much more than a huge fortified wall. If you go further you can see the castle though. Luckily with my drone I had a bit a better view. We also noticed that the door to the ‘castle garden’ was open so you can enter but it’s not allowed.
3. Grand-Château d’Ansembourg : this was probably the nicest one of all, especially the gardens here were gorgeous and freely accessible, check out the video to have an idea of how it looks!
4. Vieux-Château d’Ansembourg : This castle is actually a hotel now and is completely private. There is a private road that leads to it. Thinking we might actually be able to enter the castle we drove in the private road anyway but once we arrived at the castle’s gate a worker of the hotel kindly asked us to leave unless we were guests at the hotel. So no luck here.
5. Château Hollenfels : this castle dates back to the 11th century and is currently used as a centre for activities for young people and youth hostel. It’s not accessible to the public. It is located on top of a cliff which gives you a beautiful view over the river Eisch’s valley
6. Château Schoenfels : this ‘castle’ is actually more like a tower. For me it looks a bit like a small medieval style apartment building.
7. Château de Mersch : this is the last castle of the 7 and it is located in Mersch, except for the entrance gate there isn’t much left of the castle actually. Mersch has some other nice buildings that might be considered to visit: St. Michel church and St. Michel tower, both architectural masterpieces.

Conclusion

After visiting all the castles we all agreed that the expectations were higher, castles were mostly ruins and not accessible, sometimes there wasn’t even a real castle. But, I think if you really love hiking it might be worth it! The hike will take you along beautiful nature in the valley of the river Eisch and as a bonus you’ll see some nice castles!

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