Old cellars under Caestert Castle

Caestert Castle was a castle located on the Plateau of Caestert in the Belgian province of Liège, south of Maastricht. The castle was located about 250 meters south of the border with the Netherlands and about 100 meters east of the border with the province of Limburg. It was located on top of the rocks at Klein-Ternaaien, looking out over the Meuse. On the east side it looked out over the Meuse, on the west side was the Caestert farm, which still exists in a very dilapidated state. The castle was located behind the farm at the end of the Castertweg and near the Rue de Caster.

The Caestert plateau used to form a single whole from Maastricht to Visé, but in the course of time it has been cut through and part of it has been excavated for lime extraction. The Albert Canal cuts through the plateau between the Belgian towns of Kanne and Ternaaien (French: Lanaye) and attracts many cyclists and hikers with its 60-metre-deep incision. The part of the Caestert Plateau on the south side of the canal is called the Eben-Emael Plateau. On Dutch territory, the ENCI quarry has made a large crater and on Belgian territory the Marnebel quarry near Eben Emael and a quarry near Visé have been dug. The D'n Observant hill is a heap of landfill, which was raised from the unusable, metre-thick layers that were released during the digging of the ENCI quarry.

Various underground tunnels have been dug in the plateau. In the Dutch part of the plateau, a large part, about 70%, of these corridors has been lost due to the ENCI quarry and four large corridor systems can be distinguished, each with its own character.

In the Belgian northern part, the three largest quarries are:

Caestert quarry

Ternaaien-Boven quarry (De Aardappelenberg)

Quarry Ternaaien-Midden (A lost and therefore forgotten part of Ternaaien-Boven, rediscovered in 2009.)

Quarry Ternaaien-Beneden (Le Collinet)

Avontuurlijke Wandelingen