Still Thinking About It

After my first hike ignited my wanderlust, I searched for another trail. This time, I wanted a shorter one as I was planning to do it as an after-work excursion in the late evening. It should be close to home, easy, and feasible in about an hour. The choice was quickly made. I decided to do a trail in the small town of Lasauvage called "Sentier de la Crosnière".

From a wild woman to herons

Lasauvage, known as "Zowaasch" in Luxembourgish, is a small town in the south-west of Luxembourg. It is one of the few French-speaking towns in southern Luxembourg, many of which have a long history with the local steel industry. The local ironworks in Lasauvage were the first in the country to use minette ore, for which Luxembourg is renowned and on which much of its wealth was built.

There is an oral tradition (German: "Sage") that explains the town's name. I have copied it here verbatim, including the old spelling with the long s (ſ) and "eszett" (ß).

120. Die wilde Frau zu La Sauvage

Vor Errichtung des Hüttenwerkes zu La Sauvage, zu Ende des erſten Viertels des XVII. Jahrhunderts, war dieſes romantiſche Thal unbewohnt und führte des Namen Val de la sauvage femme. Dieſen Namen hatte es erhalten von einer wilden Frau, die ihre Wohnung in einer der Höhlungen des Felſens La Cronnière hatte. Nach der Ueberliferung nähre ſich die wilde Frau von rohem Fleiſche; ein dichtes Haupthaar, das ſie umhüllte und bis zu den Füßen herabhing, diente ihr ſtatt aller Kleidung. Ihre rot umränderten Augen, dicht an der Wurzel des Haupthaares, ſchienen glühende Kohlen zu ſein; ihre Stimme tönte wie unheimliches Eulengeſchrei, und ihre Finger waren mit ſcharfen Krallen bewaffnet, womit ſie das im Laufe erjagte Wild oder die auf den Feldern erbeuteten Schafe zerriß.

Als die wilde Frau zum Sterben kam, ſoll ſie in der Hölle keine Aufnahme gefunden haben, da man ſie für das Weibchen eines wilden Tieres hielt. So war ſie wieder zur Erde heraufzuſteigen genötigt, zum Entſetzen der ganzen Umgegend, die ſie nächtlich als ſchreckliches Geſpenſt durchſtreifte, bis endlich ein frommer Einſiedler aus dem Walde Selomon den Geiſt der wilden Frau jenſeits des Meeres bannte. Er that es unter Anrufung des hl. Donatus und Unſerer Lieben Frau zu Luxemburg, deren heilige Bilder zum Andenken an die wunderbare Befreiung in dem Felſen La Cronnière aufgeſtellt wurden.

Source: Nicolas Gredt, Sagenschatz des Luxemburger Landes (Luxemburg: V. Bück, 1883), pp. 71–72. Digitised by the National Library of Luxembourg.

The passage above recounts the legend from which Lasauvage is said to have taken its name. Before the ironworks were constructed in the early seventeenth century, the valley was supposedly uninhabited except for a wild woman who lived in a cave in the "La Cronnière" rock formation. According to the story, she ate raw meat, wore only her long hair and had glowing eyes, an owl-like voice and sharp claws. After her death, when she was denied entrance to Hell, her ghost reportedly haunted the area until a hermit banished it by invoking "Saint Donatus" and "Our Lady of Luxembourg".

The passage refers to the valley as the "Val de la Sauvage Femme", meaning "Valley of the Wild Woman". This name was eventually shortened and transformed into "Lasauvage". The Luxembourgish name "Zowaasch" is actually just a phonetic borrowing of the French name. If you say the French word "sauvage" and write it down as you hear it in Luxembourgish, you will probably end up with something very close to "Zowaasch".

A small stream flows through the town. Its official French name is the "Ruisseau de la Côte Rouge", but it is also sometimes called the "Crosnière". It is this stream that gives the trail its name. I find the coincidence with the name of the cave remarkable. In fact, the two names are sometimes interchanged, as can be seen in this news article from 1973. In Luxembourgish, this stream is called "Réierbaach". "Baach" is simply Luxembourgish for "stream", and "Réier" is Luxembourgish for "Heron".

Trail details

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Download the GPX track

The little town of Lasauvage

To reach the parking spot, I drove from my hometown along some country roads and through a few winding turns down into the valley. Then, after crossing a small tunnel bridge, I entered the small, peaceful and somewhat secluded town of Lasauvage.

The trail starts near the "Auberge an der Schoul", a hostel where you can book a stay, which is located in Lasauvage's primary school. The school still houses the "Lasauvage School", the "Nature School" and a "puppet theatre".

From there, I passed the first information panel on the trail, which you can see below. It discusses how the stream was used as a source of energy for the first blast furnace in Lasauvage by damming it at various points. However, sometimes there was not enough water, and on those days, the workers were sent home without pay. In the 1870s, the steelworks in Lasauvage were closed, as the hydropower could not compete with the newly emerging types of energy, such as electricity and steam. However, the mines continued to operate and the ore was smelted in Rodange or Differdange.

The heron, the bat, the stag, the boar and some ducks and geese

There is also a map of the trail beside the information board. The trail actually has different paths that can be followed, each marked with a different type of animal. I chose to follow a mixture of them, starting with the heron-marked one (orange on the map) and then following the bat-marked one (black on the map). From there, I followed the stag-marked trail (green on the map) until point F, then the boar-marked trail (yellow on the map) until point G, and then again the stag-marked trail.

From there, the trail leads through the park and over the border into France. It continues onto a wooden pier which is built around the pond known as "Kiercheweier", meaning "church pond" in Luxembourgish. This is explained by its location near the church named "Église Saint-Barbe". The church itself was desacralised in 2018 but is now used as an event venue by the Aalt Stadhaus, Differdange's cultural centre, where my previous trail started.

There is also an information board which is not actually an official part of the trail, but I took a photo anyway. It discusses the flora of the pond, the plants you will find here, and their importance to the surrounding fauna.

As I walked along the pier, I noticed some ducks and geese, which I, of course, photographed. We will encounter the geese again later.

A few steps later, I came to a second information board, which is part of the trail, discussing the stream and its fauna. The stream's source is 400 metres west of a place called "Baache Jang"; from there, it flows into the Chiers — you may remember this from my previous hiking log. Apparently, before 2005, Lasauvage's wastewater entered the Crosnière unfiltered.

Entering the forest

The trail follows the stream until it reaches the entrance to the forest, which is marked by a sign indicating that it is a designated nature reserve named "Kiemerchen - Scheiergronn - Groussebësch". As soon as I entered the forest, I loved the cooling sensation on my skin and the refreshing air.

The path then leads past an information board about floodplain forests. As the Crosnière is very narrow, only a small part of the surrounding forest is considered a floodplain forest. The board also discusses the types of trees that can be seen here and describes how the basket willow has been shaped by human cultivation.

The trail then leads past a ruin. From the outside, it is impossible to tell what the building was originally used for, but according to OpenStreetMap, it used to be a power station. Not far away, I also saw the entrance to the old Lasauvage mine.

Taking a wrong turn and obstacles in the way

After passing the mine, the trail began to ascend, which I could also tell from my increasing heart rate. At the point marked F on the map, I remembered that the VisitLuxembourg website said to follow the stag sign. However, when I looked at my GPS, I realised that I had gone off the trail. Fortunately, I hadn't gone too far, so I backtracked to point F and then followed the trail as marked on my GPS.

Looking at it again, I notice that the official trail on the website is a mixture of the paths I described earlier rather than following a single animal marker.

Upon reaching the summit of the trail, I continued along it, which led to some obstacles. There was a fallen tree on the trail, so I stopped for a few seconds to analyse the situation and decide on the best way to tackle it without hurting myself. At this point, I wished I had already bought some hiking shoes, as this would have made the adventure a little less risky.

As luck would have it, a few dozen metres after the first fallen tree, I came to a second one, which was smaller and easier to get over. I have, of course, already informed the local forester, and I hope that the fallen trees have been cleared away and the trail made safe again.

The return of the geese

I then started the descent of the trail very carefully, despite not wearing hiking shoes. I passed a small pond again and continued along the same path out of the forest. When I arrived at the "Kiercheweier", my friends the geese had made their way into the park. They did not seem to be afraid of me, so I took some photos of them as they came quite close before heading back into the pond.

Looking back at the trail

I found this trail well suited to an evening walk, except for the unforeseen obstacles in the way. I especially liked the section around the "Kiercheweier".

Would I recommend coming to Lasauvage just to do this trail? No, but if you're in the Lasauvage area, for example visiting the Eugène Pesch Museum or near the Minett Park Fond-de-Gras, you could fit it in. Or, if you're staying in the Kabaisercher: La Sauvage and want to go for an evening walk, then yes, you should do it.

All in all, my Wanderlust was sated for the evening. But knowing Wanderlust, probably not for long.