Mehlem on the Rhine: Brünnchen Festival, Feuerroute and History

Mehlem lies on the Rhine and offers views of the Siebengebirge, particularly the Drachenfels with its old castle ruins and Drachenburg Castle. When choosing a hotel in Mehlem, you can select from different local attractions: the summer Brünnchen Festival, the starting point of the Feuerroute nature park trail, and the history of its churches, village and villas. This lets you plan your stay around whether an event, a route or historic sites are your priority.

Festival Dates and the Feuerroute Nature Park Trail

The Brünnchen Festival recalls an old Mehlemer tradition centered on the fountain at Pützrech in Obermehlem. In summer, it is organized by the Brunnenfrauen and the Oberdorfer Männer-Reih; as an annual gathering, it is part of the local calendar. Its summer date makes the festival a specific event that you can compare with your travel dates. If you would like to plan your trip around it, check the dates announced for the relevant summer.

Bonn-Mehlem station is a starting point for the 33-kilometer Feuerroute nature park trail, which connects six stops between Wachtberg and Rheinbach. If the route is important to your travel plans, check current transport connections before you set out.

Village History and Church Art

Mehlem’s historic village layout is connected with St. Severin Church and an old crossroads. Mainzer Straße follows the course of a Roman road between Koblenz and Cologne. The village’s history thus brings together a local connection between church and crossroads and a road linking two cities.

The corpus in St. Severin originally belonged to a memorial to the fallen, which was inaugurated on September 11, 1921, and was then called a “war memorial altar.” The corpus was installed at its present location in 1999. The two dates mark different stages in its history: the dedication of the memorial and the later installation of the corpus.

The Oberdorfer Chapel was probably Mehlem’s original parish church. Much of its interior furnishings still consists of original pieces dating from the 15th to the 17th century. These include a reredos altar from 1683, donated by Johannes Lacroix and his wife, Elisabeth Kopman. The precisely dated altar thus sits alongside furnishings whose surviving original pieces span several centuries.

Parks and Villa History

Drachenstein Park covers two hectares and was part of the former park of Villa Drachenstein.

The existing Auerhof estate in Mehlem was purchased at auction in 1836 by Cologne banker Wilhelm Ludwig Deichmann; it would later become the so-called Deichmannsaue “castle.” The Villa Deichmannsaue estate historically had an English landscape garden with paths, small temples and ornamental garden houses, ponds and a maze. The historic buildings of Villa Deichmannsaue are clearly visible from the Rhine promenade. Today, federal agencies use the buildings.

Discover more places to visit: Rüngsdorf, Alt-Godesberg, Muffendorf

For the overarching travel overview: Bonn.