Gouraincourt 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 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.

A very pleasant walk with sweeping views.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A walk in Jarnisy, in the land of the iron mines. You’ll walk through fields, woods and alongside marshes, and discover the eco-village of Ville-sur-Yron. You’ll be able to admire the village architecture, traditional Lorraine-style dwellings, the building materials used, and the history reflected in the landscape and the symbolic sites still visible today: the church, the mill, the wash house and the labourers’ cottage.

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.

A memorial hike on a site where very deadly battles took place between February and April 1915, considered by some historians to be a prelude to the Battle of Verdun (nearby), which was triggered a year later. Several monuments and numerous remains mark the route, including impressive craters left by huge explosions.

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.

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.