Erlebnisroute Nordwest

From Adenauerweiher to Paffendorf Castle The tour stretches between the Belvedere Landscape Park in Cologne and the post-lignite mining landscapes of the Rhein-Erft district to the Erft and starts at Adenauerweiher near the RheinEnergie Stadium in Cologne. Even from the outskirts of Cologne, on clear days, the steam clouds from the power plant cooling towers and the Glessener Höhe, a reclaimed open-cast mining landscape, can be seen. You should allow enough time for a short break to visit Brauweiler Abbey. The church, consecrated in 1028, developed over the following centuries into one of the great Romanesque church buildings of the Rhineland and remains to this day the defining feature of the region. Today, the archive of the Rhineland Landscape Association and the Office for Monument Preservation are housed here, among other things. When the foot of the Glessener Höhe in the Königsdorfer Forest is reached after about 15 km of cycling, the climb of the Villeost slope has already been overcome and you are in the Bergheim city area. The main route runs at the foot of the wooded reclamation areas "Glessener Höhe" and "Abtsbusch" to reach the foot of the also reclaimed open-cast mining landscape "Wiedenfelder Höhe" west of Nieder- and Oberaußem. The Wiedenfelder Höhe is a spoil heap of the former Fortuna-Garsdorf opencast mine, the slopes of which are wooded and whose high plateau is used for agriculture. It is the next destination, reached via a roughly 600 m long straight climb (about 40 meters of elevation). In clear weather, the view extends to the Sophienhöhe near Jülich, the highest artificial elevation in the Rhenish lignite mining area, and on some days even to the first uplands of the Eifel. The descent into the Erft valley can be enjoyed without restriction, as there are no more climbs to overcome until Paffendorf Castle, which is adjacent to a large historic park with a pond. On weekends and public holidays, cyclists can visit an exhibition about the extraction and use of Rhenish lignite at Paffendorf Castle at the end of their bike tour.