Wittlich

Wittlich lies on the Lieser in the southern Eifel, in a side valley of the Moselle. It was recorded in 1065, and in 1300 Diether of Nassau, Archbishop-Elector of Trier, granted it town rights. The electors built Ottenstein Castle here in the Middle Ages, expressing their authority over the town and surrounding district. In the eighteenth century the castle gave way to the hunting lodge of Philippsfreude, which was destroyed during the French Revolutionary period. Wittlich's position in a cultivated basin made it a local centre between the Eifel hills and the Moselle valley, within the territories governed by Trier's ecclesiastical princes.