Dahlem

Around 500 years ago, four territorial dominions converged at this point: Jünkerath, Kronenburg, Schmidtheim and Blankenheim. The coats of arms and initial letters of the first three territories are still clearly visible on the basalt lava boundary stone. There are many indications that the side facing the village of Esch used to bear the coat of arms of the House of Blankenheim.

Here in the Dahlem Forest, on the border between North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, the Agrippa Road winds its way through the terrain in wide serpentines. This is unusual for a Roman road, but there is a simple reason for it: the road engineers based the route on the ridge between Esch and Schmidtheim, which forms a striking watershed between the rivers Kyll and Ahr. Such a high-altitude path remains passable even when the river valleys are flooded.

The road was originally 5.55 metres wide. To build it, the road builders first removed the top soil and layered weathered grey sandstone on the clay soil to stabilise it. The sandstone was covered with a thin layer of quarry stones. Finally, the roadbed was covered with a six-centimetre-thick water-bound surface.

Today, the road embankment is up to 1.70 metres high and can be seen as a winding line in the forest over a length of approximately 2.7 kilometres. In the area of the “Vierherrenstein”, a quarry interrupts the ancient road – this is where a local brickworks obtained its raw material. The road embankment reappears behind the pilgrim's cross on the Escher side and runs parallel to today's road for about 150 metres before disappearing into the terrain.