Multi-day walks in the Ardennes and Luxembourg: three trails compared
If you want a multi-day walk close to Brussels, Amsterdam or Cologne, with no flight and no mountain huts, the Treksup app has three: the Escapardenne Eislek Trail through the Luxembourg and Belgian Ardennes, the Mullerthal Trail in Luxembourg’s Little Switzerland, and the Dutch Mountain Trail across South Limburg, with short stretches in Belgium and Germany. All three go village to village, with a bed every night. They differ in length, in how hard the days are, and in what autumn and winter do to them. Here they are side by side, with the figures of the people who look after them.
The three side by side
| Trail | Days and distance | Climbing and difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Escapardenne Eislek Trail | 5 stages, 107.27 km, from Kautenbach (Luxembourg) to La Roche-en-Ardenne (Belgium): 24, 21, 20, 24 and 18 km | 2,390 m of climbing, 32:15 hours of walking. Visit Éislek grades it difficult and asks for hiking experience. |
| Mullerthal Trail | 6 stages village to village, 112 km, a loop from Echternach: 18.7, 19.5, 13.2, 18.1, 20.2 and 25.3 km | 2,133 m of climbing over the whole trail. Of all its routes, the app calls this the one most suited to a first multi-day walk. |
| Dutch Mountain Trail | 4 stages, 101 km, from Eygelshoven station to Maastricht station: about 28, 24, 26 and 23 km | About 2,000 m of climbing, by the makers’ own figure. Only partly waymarked: you follow a GPX on your phone. |
Distances and climbing from the trails’ keepers: Visit Éislek, the Mullerthal Trail organisation and the Dutch Mountain Film Festival. The app draws its own line and measures it slightly shorter; sources at the foot of the page.
Which one suits you?
- Your first multi-day walk: the Mullerthal. Shorter stages (the shortest is 13.2 km), a bus in every stage village, and you finish where you started. The longest day is the last: 25.3 km.
- Five real days, one way: the Escapardenne. Two 24 km days, steep little valley sides, and you finish in a different country from where you started. The app rates day 3, Asselborn to Houffalize, as the easiest.
- Four long days by train from the Netherlands or Flanders: the Dutch Mountain Trail. Day 1 is the longest, and in the app day 3 is the hardest: about 1,000 m of climbing in short steep pulls. If 28 km sounds like a lot, the app has a seven-day version in which no day goes over 20 km, with nights in Kerkrade, Vaals, Wahlwiller, Epen, Sint-Martens-Voeren and Eijsden.
Beds: no huts, but small villages
None of the three has a central booking system: you book each night yourself, with the hotel, B&B or campsite. Treksup does not run or sell any of them; the app shows, night by night, which addresses exist and which fill first. Wild camping is not allowed on any of them: not in Luxembourg, not in Wallonia along the Escapardenne, and not in the Netherlands.
- Escapardenne: Asselborn and Nadrin are the smallest stage ends, with only a handful of addresses, and La Roche fills in the Belgian school holidays and on summer weekends. Weekends fill before weekdays. The app reckons €23 (a tent pitch in Clervaux) to €117.50 (a single room in Clervaux) a night, read on 22 September 2026. Europ’Aventure carries bags on stages 3 to 5, from €24 for one bag.
- Mullerthal: youth hostels in Echternach and Larochette (€36 a night with breakfast, €32 for members) and in Beaufort, halfway through day 5. In Müllerthal itself, where you sleep twice, the app knows only one hotel, Le Cigalon (single room from €110). Echternach is full for the dancing procession on Whit Tuesday.
- Dutch Mountain Trail: Vrienden op de Fiets, the Dutch network of private rooms, has addresses along the whole route at €27.50 a person with breakfast; you join online first. Campsites at each stage end: de Gastmolen in Vaals, a farm campsite in Gulpen, Grensheuvel in Noorbeek near Mheer. Vaals, Mheer and Noorbeek have few beds.
Getting there by train and bus
| Trail | Getting there | Getting back |
|---|---|---|
| Escapardenne | From Belgium, a direct train runs from Liège to Kautenbach via Gouvy, Troisvierges and Clervaux; Liège to Clervaux takes about 1 h 35. From Luxembourg City: CFL line 10, about 40 minutes. Kautenbach station has 85 free parking spaces. | Bus 13 from La Roche to Melreux-Hotton station (about 24 minutes) or bus 15 to Marloie (about 30 minutes), then the train: from Melreux to Liège, from Marloie to Brussels or Luxembourg. Since June 2026 these buses do not call at Quai de l’Ourthe at weekends and in school holidays, but at Quai du Gravier. |
| Mullerthal | Train to Luxembourg (3 h 05 to 3 h 20 from Brussels), then the tram to Kirchberg Luxexpo and bus 201 to Echternach, every half hour, about 45 minutes. About 4.5 hours in all. By car from Brussels about 2.5 hours, from Maastricht or Liège under 2. | The same way back: it is a loop. |
| Dutch Mountain Trail | Arriva RE18 from Maastricht to Eygelshoven Markt, hourly, about 50 minutes, no change. From Antwerp to Maastricht via Brussels-North and Liège: about 2 h 20 on weekdays. | You finish at Maastricht station. |
Public transport in Luxembourg is free, including the trains and buses to the start of the Escapardenne and the Mullerthal.
Hunting, forestry and diversions
Escapardenne, Belgian side. In Wallonia a hunting ground can hold permission to close the public roads and paths through its woods on hunt days. Check ChasseOnWeb, the Walloon government’s map, for the day you walk, not the week. The 2026-27 season runs there from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, and on 24 September 2026 the ground between Houffalize and La Roche was almost solidly covered by grounds holding that permission: that is stages 3, 4 and 5. Only the red-and-yellow posters at the forest entrances carry legal force. If you see one, the path is closed, whatever your phone says. A closure for a driven hunt runs from official sunrise to official sunset.
Escapardenne and Mullerthal, Luxembourg side. In Luxembourg the driven hunts are listed on Geoportail and the zones are signposted on the day. The government strongly advises against walking through one, but names no rule that closes the path. Its 2025-26 season ran from 18 October to 31 January; we had not found a notice for 2026-27 by 10 October 2026. A forestry closure on the Mullerthal appears on tourisme.geoportail.lu under temporary restrictions, and the trail’s home page shows closures and diversions on its map. Visit Luxembourg posted a diversion for forestry work on Route 3 and the local path M4 on 28 July 2026; it does not say whether it still applies.
Dutch Mountain Trail. Diversions go on the makers’ page and reach the walkers’ Facebook group first. In July 2026 the makers reported that the climb of the Wilhelminaberg by the mountain-bike path is no longer possible, and that more paths on the Observant closed in 2023 and 2025. Between the Schneeberg and Vaals the landowner has closed the field access with bundles of branches: follow the Schurzelterstraße and turn right onto the Vaalserstraße after 300 m. Where a sign on the ground disagrees with your phone, the sign wins.
Autumn and winter
- Daylight. The app’s month notes reckon on about eight hours of usable light in December and January. Against stages of 24, 25.3 and 28 km that means leaving at first light, with a headlamp in the bag.
- The bed in Müllerthal. A booking site gives Le Cigalon as closed from 12 November to 14 March, and the tourist board showed it bookable from 14 March to 16 November in 2025. Its own site gives no dates, so ask the hotel. Without that bed, take the bus from Müllerthal to Echternach, where the youth hostel is open all year, or sleep at the youth hostel in Beaufort, also open all year.
- The Eijsden ferry. On the last day of the Dutch Mountain Trail you cross the Maas by a foot ferry that sails only in the warmer half of the year: the listing the app reads gave daily crossings until 25 October in 2026. Without the ferry you cross by the Lixhe bridge and the last stage is 31 km instead of 23. Ring the evening before.
- Mud. The makers of the Dutch Mountain Trail also call it the Dutch Mud Trail, and from November to March the clay is at its worst. On the Mullerthal the winter hazard is ice on the stone steps; on the Escapardenne, wet schist.
More on walking between October and March, further from home too: multi-day hikes in Europe in autumn and winter.
Two of the three are free in the app
The Escapardenne and the Mullerthal Trail are open in full in Treksup, free on iPhone: every stage, where to sleep, water, the hunts and the winter beds. Also free: the Fishermen’s Trail, the West Highland Way, the Jämtland Triangle, the Adlerweg in the Wilder Kaiser and the Presidential Traverse. The Dutch Mountain Trail, in four or seven days, is in the paid plan.
Get Treksup on the App StoreQuestions
Which multi-day walk in the Ardennes should I choose?
The Escapardenne Eislek Trail: five stages and 107 km from Kautenbach in Luxembourg to La Roche-en-Ardenne in Belgium, with a village every night. Visit Éislek, which looks after the trail, grades it difficult: 2,390 m of climbing and two 24 km days.
Which multi-day walk in Luxembourg suits a beginner?
The Mullerthal Trail: six stages of 13.2 to 25.3 km as a loop from Echternach, with a free bus in every stage village. Of all its routes, the app calls it the one most suited to a first multi-day walk.
Can I do a multi-day walk in Belgium by train?
Yes. The second half of the Escapardenne runs through the Belgian Ardennes: you start at Kautenbach, which a direct train reaches from Liège, and from La Roche a bus takes you to Melreux or Marloie station. The Dutch Mountain Trail crosses the Belgian Voerstreek and starts and ends at a station.
Can I walk in the Ardennes in winter?
Yes, but plan around three things: hunting, which can close paths in Wallonia (check ChasseOnWeb and watch for the red-and-yellow posters), about eight hours of light in December and January, and beds that close, like Le Cigalon in Müllerthal from mid-November to mid-March.
Read next
Sources
- Visit Éislek, Escapardenne Eislek Trail: 107.27 km in five stages, 2,390 m of climbing, 32:15 hours, “difficult”, read 10 and 11 October 2026.
- Mullerthal Trail, official site: the six-stage plan from village to village, read 4 August 2026. Tourismusverband Region Mullerthal, its record of the whole trail on Outdooractive (112.1 km, 2,133 m of climbing), read 13 October 2026.
- Dutch Mountain Film Festival, Dutch Mountain Trail: 101 km, about 2,000 m of climbing, the diversions and the notes of July 2026, read 24 September and 12 October 2026. The four stages are the guidebook’s, as the app takes them over.
- Beds and prices: Camping Reiler and Hotel Koener in Clervaux, Hotel du Midi in La Roche, Vayamundo in Houffalize, youthhostels.lu, Le Cigalon on visitluxembourg.com, vriendenopdefiets.nl, walnutlodge.nl and gastmolen.nl, all read 22 September 2026; Europ’Aventure by mail, 14 September 2026.
- Le Cigalon in winter: a booking site (Expedia) and Visit Luxembourg, read 11 October 2026. Bus from Müllerthal to Echternach and the youth hostels of Echternach and Beaufort: mobiliteit.lu and youthhostels.lu, read through search results on 11 October 2026.
- Transport: CFL, Kautenbach station (85 free spaces), read 4 August 2026; train from Liège to Kautenbach, read through search results on 11 October 2026 (the sources disagree on how often it runs); TEC, lines 13 and 15 and the stop in La Roche, read 9 September and 11 October 2026; mobiliteit.lu, line 201, read 9 September 2026; Arriva RE18 and the train from Antwerp to Maastricht, as in the app.
- Hunting: ChasseOnWeb, Service public de Wallonie, read 24 September 2026; Government of Luxembourg, notice of 15 October 2025 on the driven-hunt season, and Geoportail, read 10 October 2026.
- Diversion on the Mullerthal: Visit Luxembourg, notice of 28 July 2026, read 11 October 2026; tourisme.geoportail.lu as the place for closures, as the app recorded it on 28 September 2026.
- Eijsden–Lanaye ferry: Pontjes.nl, LI-017 / BE-032, read 24 September 2026; Visit Zuid-Limburg on high water and wind, read 8 September 2026. The ferry’s own listing, veerponten.nl, returned no readable text in September 2026.
- Treksup route data: the grades per day and per month, and the seven-day version of the Dutch Mountain Trail (nights checked on 19 September 2026).
Beds, timetables and hunt days change. Check the source before you book. Page written 19 October 2026.