- 7km – Intermediate (steep sections) – 2 hours
- A pleasant Moselle Valley hike, centred around the St Donatus Chapel on the Koeppchen – Luxembourg’s most prestigious vineyard.
- By car: Parking Friedhof, Rue du Cimetière, Wormeldange.
- By bus: Wormeldange, Cave.
- Alternative (as I did): Park and start from the small parking just out of town on the Rue de Dreiborn.
Really, this hike is all about the “Koeppchen“, the Champs-Elysées of Luxembourg’s vineyards, and the St Donatus Chapel, the pocket-sized Notre-Dame of Luxembourgish wine.
Officially, the hike begins in the centre of Wormeldange, but I wanted to get up to the chapel as quickly as I could to take some photos before the morning light became too harsh. So, I parked just outside the town and climbed up stark concrete steps towards the Koeppchen. It’s a steep climb, one of two tough sections on this otherwise easy hike, and I rewarded myself by resting at the chapel for twenty minutes or so, just drinking in the views over the vineyards, the village and the bottle-green waters of the languid Moselle, far far below me.
This welcome breather, along with a useful information sign at the top (English translation via QR code), gave me the chance to find out a little more about the Koeppchen. Rising steeply above Wormeldange, this is arguably Luxembourg’s best-known vineyard. Its shell-limestone soils, strong southern exposure and slopes reaching more than 45 degrees create superb conditions for Riesling. Of its roughly 8.5 hectares, about 7.7 are planted with Riesling (although I noticed a surprisingly high number of coppery-red Pinot Gris as well), and wines carrying the Koeppchen name rank among the most prestigious of Luxembourg’s Moselle.
The charming little chapel itself was built between 1925 and 1927, funded largely by local donations and labour. It honours Saint Donatus, patron of Wormeldange’s vineyards and traditional protector against lightning, hail, storms and fire. A procession still climbs to it each July, and Grand Duke Henri personally joined the Riesling harvest here in October 2020, cutting grapes just below the chapel alongside local winemakers.
From the chapel, the trail zig-zags down these venerated slopes towards the village itself. It was turning into a hot, sticky morning, and the local wildlife was out in force. Lizards of all sorts of sizes and colours scuttled under rocks and into cracks upon my approach, a kestrel flew off from a post in search of better hunting terrain, and clouds of flies swarmed in the humid air on the edge between the vines and the paths.
The trail briefly dips down to the river before rising back up through the quiet streets of the village, slowly at first, then past the official starting point, turning into a brutal 18% gradient and steeper still through another winding concrete staircase. At the top, there are plenty of opportunities for views back over the grey rooftops and green valley, with the St Donatus chapel always there in the distance, standing proudly over it all.
Up on the heights again, a long, straight path parallel to the Moselle had expensive mansions on one side and vineyards sweeping to the river on the other. Between them, sharing my path, were the aforementioned swarms of flies, pulsating vertical columns of insects, bobbing in the humid late- summer breeze. Upon closer inspection (I walked through a cloud in the name of science), it turns out that they weren’t flies after all, but winged ants, millions and millions of them, using these perfect conditions to engage in their furious, frenzied mating dance.
I kept my mouth closed, shook some horny ants out of my hair, and pressed on.
Turning away from the vineyards meant that I thankfully left the copulating ants behind too. From here, the drama rather drains out of the route as it winds back towards the starting point through quiet residential streets: asphalt paths, children’s bikes abandoned in gardens, the distant hum of busy machinery.
Just before arriving back at the car, the path entered its first – and only – section of forest: a steepish downhill section. I had no sooner set foot in the welcome shade of the trees when the bells of St Donatus started ringing out for midday. Using their steady rhythm to set my pace downwards, I paused only to glimpse the pretty little chapel itself through a break in the trees, then pressed onwards. The bells stopped just before I arrived back at my starting point, a fitting end to a warm morning on the slopes of the Moselle.
(c) Jonathan Orr 2026
Link to my Komoot track of the hike can be found here.
Luxembourg Outdoors 