Billy-sous-Mangiennes walks

The Étang d’Amel, owned by the Conservatoire d’espaces naturels de Lorraine, was designated, along with the adjoining land, as a Regional Nature Reserve in 2006 by the Lorraine Regional Council. The Étang d’Amel nature route, which runs through the villages of Senon and Amel-sur-l’Étang, features information boards and two observation points. This allows you to watch the birds without disturbing them.

A very pleasant walk with sweeping views.

Passing through woods, meadows and sites of First World War battles, we reach the River Meuse at Stenay, a small town in department 55. Our route crosses several meanders and enters the Ardennes via Mouzon, from where EuroVelo 19 takes us to Sedan. On the way, we’ll pitch our tent near Lake Douzy and return there in the evening.

A beautiful walking route amongst the old stone buildings, tunnel fountains and the countryside. Although described as a walking route, this route can also be tackled by mountain bike (in which case, adjust the starting point due to road signage; see description).

Set in a very pretty rural setting with lush green valleys and a traditional village.

Connect, in 9 km, the memorial, the destroyed village of Fleury, the ossuary, the Zigzag Trench and Fort Douaumont.

A route steeped in the history of the Great War.This route offers a chance to explore the woods replanted following the 1914–1918 war between France and Germany.There are several historical remains to explore, such as bunkers, shelters and buildings including the Douaumont Ossuary and Fort Douaumont.

This walk takes you past many ruined structures, a destroyed village, monuments, memorial stones and recently restored trenches. It passes by Fort Douaumont and the Douaumont Cemetery. Look carefully at the ground – you’ll still find plenty of shell fragments and sometimes even whole shells.

This history-filled route allows you to discover structures, shelters, command posts, entrenchments and an intermediate ammunition shelter still in good condition, as well as some remains of trenches and isolated combat posts.

Famous for its Witches’ Festival, Fillières also offers lovely countryside and woodland walking trails. This walk through the woods will let you discover the charms of the Crusnes through the seasons. The path is currently impassable due to fallen trees. Forestry work is not yet complete.

Famous for its Witches’ Festival, Fillières also offers lovely walking trails. This one combines a walk through the forest with country lanes. It runs alongside the River Crusnes and offers you peaceful spots to recharge your batteries in the heart of nature.

A walk along the Chiers, on a mainly tarmac-surfaced and easily accessible route. This walk takes you close to former industrial and production sites that are now disused. In the tranquillity of the forest, imagine the hum of activity from days gone by still echoing amongst the trees and the remnants of the past.

This very natural route takes you on a journey of discovery through the wooded hills on the border between the Batte (Belgium) and Coulmy (France) valleys.Anyone with even a passing interest in the region's industrial history will also discover its mining and steel-making past, highlighted by the Transfrontier Iron Mines Trail and a number of information panels along the route.The trail passes by some of the iron mines that brought prosperity to the region in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the Musson slag heap, which over time collected all the slag from the mines on the Musson and Halanzy sides. Now cleaned up, it has been turned into a nature reserve managed by the DNF (Nature and Forestry Division).

This route straddles a linguistic border, the one that divides Belgian Lorraine into two cultural zones. To the west lies the Gaume, characterised by Gaumais, a Lorraine dialect of Latin origin. To the east, the Pays d’Arlon is characterised by a Germanic dialect, Moselle Franconian. The place-names, sometimes Latin and sometimes Germanic, allow you to trace the course of this cultural boundary.

As the weather is set to be rainy with thunderstorms all day, I’m sticking to the main roads – even the major routes – to get to my destination for the day, Habay-la-Neuve, as quickly as possible. I’m staying in a hotel in the town. The stop (E) is therefore at my discretion.

The second part of the stage from Conflans-Jarny station is a route along small country roads back to Metz. The grounds of Moncel Castle near Jarny are an ideal spot for a break. From the Montvaux Valley, which we pass through, it is easy to reach the southern part of the Metz conurbation.

Lasauvage and Fond-de-Gras are must-see sites for understanding the mining history of this cross-border region.The railway line between Fond-de-Gras and Pétange was built in the 19th century to facilitate the transport of iron ore from the hills to the steelworks and foundries located on the plain.The narrow-gauge network, which can be seen in both Lasauvage and Fond-de-Gras, was used to transport the ore from the underground mine galleries to the transfer points.Fond-de-Gras, formerly known as the Lamadelaine industrial station, has now become a living museum of the region’s mining and industrial past and houses magnificent relics from days gone by. It is also the home of the ‘Train 1900’ and ‘Minièresbunn’ (underground) tourist trains, which operate mainly at weekends and on public holidays from May to September.

Gaume, this beautiful hilly region in southern Belgium, is known for its mild climate. However, I have no idea if the area is popular with hikers... There are hiking markers all along the route. It is possible that you will encounter few or no people.

The mines, the mines of yesterday, the iron mines... this is the main theme of this hike.Fond-de-Gras is the most informative site on this subject: it was the station where narrow-gauge trains converged to unload iron ore into standard-gauge wagons bound for the steelworks and blast furnaces of Pétange, Differdange and others in Belgium and Germany.