GB Attractions 3

The year 2002: In Welchenhausen, a district of the municipality of Lützkampen at the German-Belgian-Luxembourg border triangle, which still has 35 inhabitants, the newly built bus shelter, which is now used by only one schoolchild, is a rather desolate sight.

In the house opposite, teacher Bernd Kersting is thinking of embellishing the empty little house with art. The idea met with the approval of the villagers and the active support of Leonie Simons, the mayor of Lützkämper.

Visit the Roman glassworks in Monschau and experience the ancient craft of glassblowing.

This art originated in the Roman Empire, whose craft techniques have been preserved to this day.

We are an old family business whose company history has already experienced a very long tradition and many different forms.

Today, in the 4th and 5th generation, mustard is produced in a mustard mill that is more than 100 years old. Originally driven by a water wheel, it still works with an old transmission and can be visited in its production method.

Charlemagne had the first Salvator Church built. As the repository of the relic of the Sandals of Christ, the abbey church of the Benedictine Abbey of Prüm was so sumptuously furnished that it was called the "Golden Church".

After a chequered history, in the course of which the church was destroyed several times and fell victim to catastrophic fires, the Trier Elector Franz Ludwig of Palatinate-Neuburg commissioned the rebuilding of the Salvator Church in 1721. The ground plan of today's Salvator Church goes back to the designs of court architect Hans georg Judas, who drew on earlier styles such as Romantic, Gothic and Renaissance. In contrast, the interior decoration reflects the Main Franconian baroque spirit of his successors Neumann and Seitz.

Graduate designer Hubert Kruft learned the blacksmith's trade from his father in his parents' business and then studied design in Aachen. Since autumn 2013, he has been passing on his knowledge to our son Lukas. 

In this way, an old village blacksmith's shop gradually developed into a workshop for artistic metal design, which he ran together with his late brother Alfred Kruft and which is now already being run by the fifth generation.  

Where oxen and horses were shod in the past, copper is now mainly hammered, but steel is also forged. All the copper work here is made individually by hand and is therefore unique. 

The strictly naturalistic works that you come across again and again are cast in bronze and are carefully selected and purchased by us. 

Another important area of Hubert Kruft's work is the performing art made from old farming implements, which he has already presented at several art exhibitions, as well as his sculptures made from Corten steel.

Not to forget the numerous fountains, which are handmade from solid copper.

The beer museum on the Tomberg is undoubtedly a tourist attraction.

The museum contains almost 4,000 bottles of different types of beer with matching glasses and various utensils, as well as some antiques.

When the Romans laid the foundation stone for the Porta Nigra in 170 AD, they could hardly have imagined its success story.

After all, the city gate was only one of four in Trier at the time - and of many in the entire Roman Empire. 

Today, some 1850 years later, the "Black Gate" is the best-preserved Roman city gate north of the Alps and THE sight to see when it comes to Roman rule in the areas of modern-day Germany.