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Züsch and the Primstal reservoir
It is worth combining a visit of
"Hunnenring"
with a circular
hike, for the area around Dollberg has a whole range of other
attractions to offer. As a starting point of this circular hike
Züsch, a small village at the northeast foot of Dollberg, has a
church that is worth seeing. From Züsch the European long-distance
trail, "Atlantik-Ardennen-Böhmerwald", first leads you
to the Züsch mill on the Allbach stream and then to the
Celtic
ring wall on Dollberg (620 m). The return journey leads steeply
down into the Prims valley, where the Nonnweiler dam has formed
Primstal reservoir, the largest reserve of freshwater and water
for industrial use in both the districts of Rheinland-Pfalz and
Saarland (bathing and diving not allowed). It is worth noting
that the Prims river does not drain into the Nahe but into
the Rhine via the Saar and Mosel Rivers. There is a dense forest
alongside the reservoir to the mouth of Allbach stream, which you
follow upstream to Züsch and, just before you reach the village,
you encounter the ruins of "Züscher Hammer", a former
iron-smelting plant that was shut down 165
years ago. It started up in the second half of the 17th century
together with another iron-smelting plant in
the neighboring village of Dampflos and processed the iron ore
from the region, especially the ore mined near Otzenhausen. At
the beginning of the 19th century, when the great iron-processing
industries started production in the Ruhr Basin and Saarland, the
"old" ironworks in Hunsrück had no chance due to the much poorer
quality of their iron ore.
Photo: The small river Prims is dammed by the Nonnweiler Dam
to form the Primstal Reservoir, the largest drinking and industrial
water reservoir in the two federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and
Saarland. It is remarkable that the Prims does not drain to the Nahe river,
but via the Saar and Moselle rivers into the Rhine.
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