I spent a swelteringly hot weekend last weekend in and around Luxembourg, where I went looking for menhirs – particularly those around the small town of Ferschweiler just across the border with Germany. (I had been to the one surviving menhir in Luxembourg itself two years ago.) I found more than just standing stones – a modern imperial cult, a Roman villa and a Roman cemetery, and a fancy-dress party with a Roman theme, as well as dinosaurs and space exploration. Much more below the jump.

(Yellow pins = food stops; purple pins = megaliths, suspected and confirmed; blue pins = Roman sites that I visited; orange pins = other sites that I did not visit)

My first stop was at the Euro Space Centre halfway to Luxembourg, where I bought myself a NASA hat for the coming hikes, and also lunched on that Belgian delicacy, pêches au thon, tinned peaches with tuna fish on top. Mmm.

I realised that there were a couple more Belgian megalithic monuments on the way down that I had not yet seen. (For other Belgian megaliths, see here, here, here and here.) The best of these are Les Pierres du Diable at Forrières, quite close to Rochefort, a half dozen stones that are supposedly the remains of three dolmens destroyed by early Christians, with a couple of low trees making it a nice grove and a Christian cross erected on the side of the hill to remind us who won.

The other two were a bit disappointing. One near Libramont-Chévigny has a big info board beside it saying “La Pierre dressée de Renaumont n’est donc absolument pas un menhir.” To be honest it is not a menhir in style – too tall and thin.

The other is convincingly a menhir, but has been moved from its original location to a slightly dingy corner of the town of Neufchâteau, not far from the previous one. My Irish soul revolts at moving these stones from where ancient people thoughtfully placed them, though I can see that there is an argument for putting them where they will be seen. It’s particularly easy to reach from the motorway if you want to try. There are what look like two flagpoles behind it. Perhaps it is illuminated at times of special celebration.

I stayed in Luxembourg that night with my cousin J, who took me to a party with a Roman theme, appropriately enough given the theme of my weekend. She cleans up well.

I went as an aspect of the Celtic deity Cernunnos. (Should have large antlers really, but there are health and safety considerations.)

The next day I headed across the German border, through the dramatic lush leafy hillsides of northern Luxembourg, starting with the excavated Roman villa of Bollendorf, not far from Echternach.

It is on the brow of the suburban hill overlooking Bollendorf’s eighteenth century castle, in whose grounds I found the first of my German menhirs, the “border stone”.

A couple of km down the river, in the village of Weilerbach, is the base of a monument to the goddess Diana, supposedly desecrated in the early Christian era by St Willibrord himself, though the fact that the goddess’s name is still visible suggests that he didn’t do such a good job of it.

The inscription says,

DEAE DIANAE
Q(UINTUS) POSTUMIUS
POTENS V(OTUM) S(OLVIT)

”To the goddess Diana by Quintus Postumius Potens in fulfilment of his vow”

I parked near the Diana monument and then tried a quite serious little hike going about 120m vertically up the forested hillside to the Bärenstein, the “Bear Stone”, which the info boards assure us was never an altar, menhir or Stone Age tomb, even though locals have called it the “Altar Stone” for centuries. Personally I do not really see how this could be a natural rock formation.

This hike was also a proof of concept. I had a very long walk planned for a very hot afternoon, and I don’t do that sort of thing often; if my 59-year-old body couldn’t manage this shortish climb, I would review my plans. But I was OK, perspiring but not wiped out from exhaustion, so I proceeded.

By the time I had got back down the hill, it was time for lunch. My choices on a Sunday were limited, and in the end, rather than go back to the castle at Bollendorf, I went to the nature reserve of Teufelsschlucht, the “Devil’s Gorge”, two villages away where they look at a past more distant than menhirs.

In fact the reception desk at the dinosaur park recommended me rather firmly to go to the neighbouring nature reserve for lunch, rather than their own cafe, and I got a fine Wienerschnitzel.

Off then to my main target, the village of Ferschweiler, which sits on a wooded plateau thick with menhirs. I must say if I were the local tourism authority I would set up a menhir trail for people to follow. Left to my own devices, I found five of the six megalithic stones I was looking for, plus a Roman era site, plus the remnants of a more recent imperial cult.

Parking was more difficult than it should have been. I will note for future visitors that there is a perfectly good car park in Ferschweiler on the Bornstraße opposite the cemetery. I missed it, and instead parked outside the St Luzia school on the other side of town.

A half hour walk took me to a glade where the remnants of Gallo-Roman cremation graves rest quietly among the trees.

A couple of the stones still show the pits where cremation urns would have been placed. There would have been some superstructure as well, but it has been lost.

Most of the ancient stones are much more ancient than these graves, but it was a good moment of spiritual alignment, to start with a resting place for the dead.

Twenty more minutes walk to the first of the menhirs, a handsome 2.25 metre chap called the Druidenstein, “Druid’s Stone”. It looks quite different from the different angles.

Another twenty minutes to a menhir vandalized by Christians, the Fraubillenkreuz, whose slightly obscure name refers either to the Sibyl or to the Blessed Virgin. St Willibrord gets blamed again for altering it. There are little square alcoves carved into the front and back where presumably sacred images, or at least candles, could be placed.

Right next to it was a surprise monument: a small moated mound with a couple of trees on it.

This apparently is one of a number of groves in that part of Germany, erected in or soon after 1811, to commemorate the birth of Napoleon’s son, known to history variously as Napoleon II or the Duke of Reichstadt. (He died of tuberculosis in 1832, eleven years after his father.) This seems to have been a local thing in the Département of Forêts, which included the Bitburg area of Germany, the territory of today’s Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and most of the Belgian province of the same name.

Only a ten-minute walk, but this time off the tracks and requiring some searching, to the Nusbaum Menhirs, which were apparently found only in 1930. There is a two-metre standing stone, and a four-metre recumbent. If it weren’t for the forest, there would be a clear line of sight with the Fraubillenkreuz.

The back of the standing stone has some of the “cup marks” which I am familiar with from its Irish cousins.

The next stage was quite a long walk through the forest, at 45 minutes the longest single leg, to find the Holsthum Langenstein, the “Tall Stone of Holsthum”, which despite its name at roughly a metre in height was the shortest of any of the day’s menhirs.

It sits quite happily by the path and gives its name to the district where it is located. The info board admits that there is no direct evidence that it is a menhir beyond the name. To me it’s obviously part of the family.

From there it should have been another 25 minutes walk to the Holsthumer Druidenstein, the “Druids’ Stone of Holsthum”, which was the last of my itinerary. But I could not find it. It is two metres tall, but off the beaten path. I kept plugging the GPS coordinates into my phone, and casting about in the woods. but the signal kept putting me in a slightly different place. No doubt it was the telluric currents combining with the feng shui to disrupt my equipment.

Farther over the hill in Holsthum, I could have gone to another Gallo-Roman cemetery and another excavated Roman villa. But by now I had been walking for almost three hours on the hottest day (so far) of the year, and wanted to get back to the car for the 2.5 hour drive home in time for the Belgium Iran match at 9 pm, so I called it a day. (Iran held Belgium to a goalless draw.)

This was an ambitious walk in the current heatwave, but would have been a pleasant ramble at milder temperatures (and I might also have taken in a few more of the sites). My feet and legs were very sore indeed on Sunday night driving home and watching the match, but back to normal on Monday.