Gulpen-Wittem: Holiday apartments between monastery, wine and walking trails

Gulpen-Wittem combines Klooster Wittem, historic monuments, brewery tours, wine routes, and walking and cycling routes.

Culture and history

Everyone is welcome at the pilgrimage site of Klooster Wittem, where visitors can find peace, prayer and reflection. Guided tours of Klooster Wittem may include the monastery church and chapels, the old refectory, the monastery library, the crypt and the monastery garden.

Gulpen-Wittem has 287 national heritage monuments, three archaeological national heritage monuments, more than 850 characteristic buildings, four nationally protected town or village views, five protected country estates and four Lourdes grottoes. Buitenplaats Kasteel Wijlre combines contemporary art, architecture, cultural heritage and nature. Every year, it presents an international programme with exhibitions and public activities. At Buitenplaats Kasteel Wijlre, visitors can walk along the moat and admire modern sculptures amid lush greenery.

The Kunst- en Verzamelhuis Wijlre comprises 20 museum rooms with scenes from everyday life dating from 1870 to 1970, as well as art by Tineke van Dien.

Beer, wine and regional specialities

The Brand beer tour includes the Brand Museum, the copper brewing kettles, information about the ingredients and brewing process, and a tasting of a Brand speciality beer. A tour of the Gulpener brewery includes a blind tasting. The vintage beer tasting takes place in the brewery’s vaulted cellars and showcases beers from the Netherlands and abroad.

The Brand Proeflokaal in Wijlre serves as a starting point for brewery tours and other arrangements. At the Brand Proeflokaal in Wijlre, visitors can enjoy beer, savoury snacks, coffee and Limburgse vlaai. The Gulpener BrouwLokaal has vaulted cellars with more than 100 beer styles from around the world and offers the opportunity to brew your own beer in a microbrewery. All ingredients at the Gulpener BrouwLokaal come from within a radius of around 40 kilometres of the brewery.

The Route des Vins Wahlwiller-Eys is an approximately 10-kilometre wine route around Eys and Wahlwiller that allows visitors to discover the wine of South Limburg. It passes five vineyards and provides interesting information about wine along the way.

Walking and cycling

Gulpen-Wittem has 330 kilometres of walking trails, along which 62 leisure walks of varying lengths run. The Nacht van Gulpen is a 70-kilometre walking event held in a single night. Gulpen-Wittem has themed walks that combine art, history and culture along the way.

Gulpen-Wittem is connected to the Limburg cycling network; visitors can create their own cycling routes using the numbered junction system. Three signposted mountain bike routes, each 25 kilometres long, lead through the hilly landscape of Gulpen-Wittem. The Via Gulia is considered a linear walking route and a long-distance hiking option starting from Gulpen-Wittem.

Routes with history and landscape

The Kasteel en klooster van Wittem walking route starts at the Redemptorist monastery in Wittem, which also houses a special library, passes Kasteel Wittem and continues through a landscape of fields, woodland edges and gentle hills. The Tussen Eys en Nijswiller walking route combines several steep climbs with panoramic views and vineyard landscapes.

Two walks of 10 and 12 kilometres pass 19 memorial monuments in Gulpen-Wittem and convey stories about the monuments and events of the Second World War through audio fragments. In Eys, a 3.7-kilometre walking route explores the themes of chalk, marl and limestone.

You can find more local pages under Epen, Reijmerstok, Mechelen, Slenaken, Heijenrath and Elkenrade.

For the higher-level travel overview: Limburg.