G5 - L'Ermite - 6km

Parking and departure at the church of Gembes.

The Church of Our Lady, restored in 1992, dates from 1877–1879. It is built in Neo-Romanesque style and features a very beautiful series of modern stained-glass windows from the 1950s. The walk leaves the village via the Culée.

The path that descends through the woods toward the Almache passes close to the Roche du Curé, which overlooks the valley. Jean Nicolas ADNET, parish priest of Gembes, hid there during the French occupation. He was one of the priests who refused to swear an oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.

On the banks of the Almache, not far from the ruins of the old Hermit’s Bridge and near a solitary spruce among the deciduous trees, there is a rock shaped like an overhang, the Hermit’s Hole. According to legend, an old hermit lived there at the time when epidemics were raging in the region. The village of Gembrai, decimated, had only two inhabitants left, two brothers. They came to beg the old man to protect them from contagion. He advised them to chew the root of a plant that was supposed to protect them from the disease.

The walk follows the river and then climbs up to the left into the Bois à Ban. A woodland could be “placed under ban” (that is, protected from any harvesting) either for a few years after logging, to allow good regrowth, or permanently, as a hunting reserve for the Lord. The “Bois de Gembes” was jointly owned by the Duke of Bouillon and the Lord of Gembes, his vassal.

At the edge of the woods, there is a wide view over the Almache valley. The path turns and runs along the height beside a very beautiful beech forest that hides many well-developed hollies. The meadows of the Statche bear a name that could suggest the presence here of a gallows or justice post. The route returns to the village via the Old Gembes Road, coming from Lomprez.