How Our Last-Minute Eifel Trip Began

We were to be in the German Eifel region only a few days, a weekend trip to Monschau and the Eifel that came about over a glass of wine and that wanderlust Jenn and I had been infected with since college. When we were younger, it happened at Barnes & Noble: we’d grab a coffee from the cafe, pull a Rick Steves guide off the shelf and be transported to some far-off place from that big store off Belleview, planning the trip in our minds and bringing home notes about things to see, where to stay, what to eat.

Nowadays, it’s more spontaneous and maybe a little less romantic, and I’m afraid Rick has been mostly cut out of the process. It’s YouTube videos, consultations with ChatGPT, or the Post-it note we made after reading that Condé Nast piece a few months ago, with the scribbled reminder: “check this out.”

This time it was Germany: Monschau in the Eifel. “The most picturesque town in the whole country,” the internet said – a bold claim – and one we could verify in only three hours’ time. So the journey materialized: an Airbnb, a rental car, and a loosely thrown-together itinerary.

Driving South Toward the Hills

The kids mostly behaved, if you don’t count the unending snack requests and the bickering I’ve come to expect between two boys. Driving south in the Netherlands toward the Ardennes reminds me of where I grew up: the journey into Kentucky leading you away from flat farmland to an area where hills begin to break the horizon.

The Dutch countryside floated by, and as evening set in we finally pulled into our rental on the outskirts of Monschau around 6 p.m. The journey down went off uneventfully, other than the owner speaking no English and expecting to be paid on the spot in cash we didn’t have.

We settled into the place, the fireplace warming the small, peculiarly decorated German house, an odd juxtaposition of neo-Airbnb chic mixed with cheaply framed, yellowing monstrosities you might find at a flea market behind the more popular tossed-out Rembrandt and Van Gogh prints. But at least these had some character.

Exploring Eifel National Park in Autumn

As a home base, it served us well: 30 minutes from Eifel National Park, and 10 from “the most picturesque town in all of Germany”, the internet claim we had come to verify after all. And nothing proved disappointing. The park, in its peak season of fall colors, was a mixture of seclusion and comfort: treks through the Black Forest sharing the same trailheads with the kinds of walks where you barely leave sight of your car, the pace that suited us better on this type of trip.

The town of Monschau lived up to its reputation. We drove into it from above, it being set in a steep valley on the banks of the upper Roer River, whose meandering waters eventually go on to feed the Rhine and industrial heart of Germany… but here it is quaint, peaceful. A stream that makes you want to grab a fly rod and pull out a four-inch brown trout from its quiet, glassine pools. The town feels as though it’s part of that idyllic story too: the half-timbered white houses clinging to the valley walls and the center of town punctuated by a medieval-era palatial house once home to a textile merchant.

Finding the Character of the Town

The typical junky trinket shops were nowhere to be found in Monschau, but rather tiny little stores selling homemade mustard or small-batch Eifel-region whisky (which I obviously brought home). You feel a sense of having discovered something unique and unspoiled and special in Monschau.

As evening set in on our final day, we ended with an unplanned but typical stop: a playground. Just over a small wooden bridge, it – like most European playgrounds we’ve encountered – was simple: lots of wood, metal things held together by rusty bolts, thick rope nets attached to old fallen tree trunks that now served as climbing structures. And it was all perfect.

The View Over Monschau

A trail led up the side of the valley, one we followed without knowing where it led at all, guarded at the bottom by a shrine containing a whitewashed idol of the Virgin Mary (which Mom cleverly used as bait to go on the walk, describing it as a ghost statue the kids had to check out).

As it climbed, the valley opened up below. The Burg Monschau, which we hadn’t had time to visit, perched atop the opposite valley wall and came into view, and after that, the whole village of Monschau, snaking along the river’s edge into the Eifel valley. As the wind blew in, wresting loose the first of the fall leaves, Monschau sprawled out below, Jacob and Owen ran around the woods, and it became one of those moments you know will be hard to forget. It was a town I’m sure would be featured in one of those Rick Steves books we no longer read. And with just a three-hour drive back home the next day, was well worth testing whether the internet was right about that claim.