Mühlsteinhöhlen Hohenfels-Essingen
Hohenfels-Essingen
Especially children love caves! Dark, partly eerie and in any case adventurous is the exploration of the numerous ice and millstone caves in the Gerolsteiner Land adventure region, e. g. in Hohenfels-Essingen, Roth and Birresborn. For centuries, the basalt of the volcanic Eifel was suitable for the production of millstones, which were used in paper and loh mills, but also in grain and oil mills. The sweat-destroying mining of the millstones gave rise to today's caves, where ice cones of astonishing size still form in particularly cold winters.
Tip: A small circular path opens up the Mühlstein caves in the Mühlenberg in Hohenfels-Essingen
The best material for millstone extraction was "agglutinated basalt slag" - liquid, still glowing lava fragments deposited on and around the crater rim; the volcanic heat has welded these fragments together, resulting in a solid, tough rock, but with a large pore volume. In Hohenfels-Essingen a small cave labyrinth was created by the mining of the millstones with hammer and chisel by strong hands and sweating work. To this day one can still see in the caves with such sonorous names as "Schwedenfeste", "St. Martin"- and "Borussiahöhle" still "glue" the almost finished millstones to the walls.
The caves in Hohenfels-Essingen are accessible all year round, from the federal road B410 (main connection between Daun and Gerolstein) the caves are signposted. A car access is possible to the forest to the parking lot at the caves.