13 000 years ago the Laacher See volcano eruption laid waste to the East Eifel landscape.

Out of the torn landscape a wonderful new countryside developed over a period of thousands of years. People settled, started to farm the land, keep animals and to use the black stone of the Eifel to mill their cereal crops.

Two thousand years ago the Romans came up from the south and occupied the land to the west of the Rhine. With the arrival of the Romans everything changed. They excavated the dark basalt and the pale tuff stone, used it to build and turned settlements such as Mayen and Andernach into towns. They used ships to transport the stone northwards where they built more roads and settlements.

The Romans lived in this area for almost 500 years. They left many testimonials behind, in Trier, Cologne and Xanten as well as the Limes east of the Rhine.

One of these testimonials is directly on our doorstep.
The Roman mine at Meurin