Walking Through Germany
Holiday two: nine days of walking begun Easter Monday 17 April 06
It seemed I packed more pills and books - Barnaby Rudge, Caesar Book Seven, a book of puzzles A had brought from Oz, some Times crosswords. Had booked night at Ibis Hotel in Ulm and after supper, walked through old town down to the Danube which was quite high with the footpath flooded at one place. Floods in Rumania.
The first two hours were in a small valley with tree-lined slopes beside the little river Lone, full enough but not flooding. There were no houses but just spring flowers and bird song and any number of platforms for the wild boar hunters - there must be a lot of the wild boar but where do they go during the day?
There were regular benches, one spoilt by the remains of a red Easter egg shell. A crow landed to invstigate, kept his eye on me as well as I was eating and did a huge bounce after a clumsy landing - not something, I hope, a Singapore Airlines pilot would have done with his Jumbo jet.
Then up and over to join the bigger River Brenz where it came towards us in a huge meander and walked high above it with lovely views of the hilly countryside to Schloss Falkenstein, actually a farm although a Madame, more like a Schloss owner, watched us intently to see we didn't nick something as a souvenir or perhaps she was wondering if we'd like a cup of tea?
Then on along another ridge to Anhausen and across the plain to Herbrechtingen where I suddenly realised I was minus my rucksack and my future life flashed in front of me - it held pills and books mostly.
We checked into a light pleasant hotel, the sympathetic owner called a taxi and we retraced our route to just across the plain where our last stop had been to look at some info boards - not there.We took the road to Falkenstein and it was still where we'd had a lengthy pause sitting on a wall. The young taxi driver couldn't get his head round the fact that we were ON FOOT and we couldn't resist adding to his bewilderment by saying we were walking to the Baltic, though not this time.
Hotel served German, Mexican and Swabian food and Madame was most relieved that we'd got the rucksack back.
We went back across the plain and up above the river again and along the heavily populated Brenz valley - much industry. The path markers disappeared above Heidenheim where they were felling trees but we found it again and landed up and picnicked in the courtyard of Heidenheim Schloss, a huge impressive building but with, according to the info board, little history. There had been an idea we might stay in the town but it was dismayingly large with a huge industrial area and not our kind of place. Königsbronn as it turned out only 8 kms away And If we stayed there, the next two days would be pleasant lengths.
We descended from the castle to the town, went due north through a shopping mall and picked up the path going back up the next hill. There was a graveyard in the first bit of forest where we could refill our water bottles. It wasn't marked anywhere and the only evidence was a gentle rise, but we crossed the watershed - water in front of us went eventually into the North Sea, that behind us went to the Black Sea. Then it was steeply down again to the sound of yaffles to Königsbronn where the first thing you see is a crystal clear pond fed by a gushing spring.
Königsbronn was a funny little place. It had the usual attractive white-washed houses with red tiled roofs but the unmanned station seemed to be its centre. There was an attractive chapel beside it.
A notice said it had had to close its doors because of dry rot. The local youth spent its time at the picnic tables between the hotel and the spring.
Lovely big room in hotel but even a few possessions can get spread everywhere- though the trick is to unpack as little as possible.
We set off up the hill on the other side of the town/village. It is in a pretty setting but we passed another Then it was broad tracks through the forest and no one except an elderly man on a bicycle who stopped for a chat. A few heavy drops of rain made us finally stop to look for rain things, whereat they stopped.
We dropped down another steep slope to the train station and had 30 minutes to wait before a train to took us through its industrial quarter for a couple of miles to Aalen. The first sight of Aalen was unprepossessing and the first hotel on the list sordid - some rough looking young men coming out and the windows plastered with information about a party and everything shabby.
But as so often happens, appearances are wrong. We walked through the old town which consisted of little squares, cobbles, busy pavement cafes and no traffic at all and found a modern hotel on the main road the other side - the only other hotel in fact that we saw.
We sat in a pavement café - then H went to the Tourist Centre and came back with a leaflet about the Town Trail. I seemed to think it was enjoyable but now cannot remember a thing about it!!
On TV that night was more news about the Rumanian floods and the fact that an Ethiopian had been beaten up by young German thugs. 'But not everyone with blond hair and blue eyes is bad.'
The HW4, the long distance trail we are following, goes on east of the town through more forest.
But we studied the other trails on the map, each with its own sign and struck west and picked up the LIMES path.
It is here that the Roman Empire reached its limit and now there is a path along the old frontier, marked by a black cross with a hat.
We took a short cut through a wood to save 10 minutes, saw deer but got lost and lost 30 minutes. In the village of Hammerstadt, a women called to us to come and have a drink as there would bb no other opportunities for a long time, but we didn't know how long that would take and wanted to go on and see the wall - and have time to see the Limes Museum later.
It was a lovely airy walk across pasture land and patches of forest (Tacitus said the region was nothing but swamp and forest.) It was interesting to see where the Romans had the limit to their Empire but there was no sign of any wall even when we were apparently right on it. Even the archaeological spots marked on the map - a Pferdestall and Wachturm - were not to be seen.
The town map in Huetlingen said there was a Roman area worth seeing. Before taking the bus back to Aalen, we plodded to it but again there were just a few unmarked stones between the houses.
The museum is on a Unesco World Heritage Site, being the area of the former Roman Barracks and Camp. ('The biggest in Europe north of the Alps.'). Quite a lot of artefacts had been assembled there - the usual coins, bracelets and pottery, some of the camp excavated and a barracks reconstructed but no example of the famous WALL - but in the picture we saw it looked very measly. Perhaps the Allemanns were of a quieter calibre than the Picts - apparently some of them found it to their advantage to be commanders in the Roman army.
The Limes was 550kms long from Rheinbrühl bei Andernach to Kelheim on the Donau - and lasted till about 260AD when the Romans sort of melted away.. There is one straight 80km stretch - straight because the expert brought in to build it was really a road expert. There may not be much left of it now but there is a Day of Wall Activities, including walking along it, in May.
Radio news on Saturday: lots of traffic jams on motorways. On paper: warning about ticks and Lyme disease.
We got a bit delayed leaving the hotel because Madame wanted to know what we were doing and thought it a brilliant idea. Took the train back to Heutlingen with our rucksacks.
More fields and woods and rolling countryside and finally crossed the Limes into barbarian countryside. We saw a shrine in the middle of a field and took a well worn little track to it.
Andresles Kapelle 1812
Mauer, (no Christian name) was a Bursche of William von Koenig aus Fachsenfeld and went with him in Napoleon's army to Moscow. They were was on the way back when they had to cross a river. All bridges were down, so he held onto the tail of his master's horse. He promised to build a shrine if he crossed safely....
We are altogether back in shrine country so this must have been a Catholic enclave when the different princedoms, free cities, bishoprics etc Germany divided after Luther. 'Cuius regio, eius religio'.
Just before we left the woods it was time for a break but no seats anywhere....the best way to find a seat is to sit on a log oozing resin and surrounded by ants with an intense desire to explore anything new, and eat your picnic. You know that there will then be a seat after about 5 0 yards.
We picnicked, tried to get rid of the ants and the resin, walked on out of the wood - and there indeed were two benches and a fountain.
I thought we were almost in Ellwangen and wanted to be, but a sign said 4 kms. I didn't believe it but it was right, for the route took us as it seemed all round the town on the far side of the river, past a view of a huge monastery in the town. But at last we suddenly crossed the river, went past one possible hotel and entered a huge cobbled square, quite without traffic, surrounded by pretty steep-roofed houses and lots of pavement cafes. The loudest noise was the plashing of the fountains. It was the centre of the old town and well worth waiting for.
We eschewed the modern Red Ox and booked into the 14th century White Ox, apparently much used by cyclists, with old uneven floors and a charming bar decorated with sepia prints of previous owners.
Ellwangen was basically a Benedictine Monastery in 764 and from 1460 was ruled by a Fuerstpropst. In 1803 it became part of Württemberg.
It was a very pretty day as we went first up the little valley of the Rotenbach, through trees and more woods, disturbing more deer, to Hohenberg, a pilgrim church (en route to Santiago) which had been built on a hill and so had fine views all round.
Pilgrims might have been expected, indeed there was a place where they could stay at the bottom of the hill - a man was at the door and stared at us. I wondered why at the time but now think he was wondering whether we were the kind of people to offer a bed to. But all the seats on top of the hill were most pilgrim-unfriendly, for they were minus their slats. Even the big shrine lower down next to a big goldfish pond, had places to kneel but nowhere to sit and meditate. We finally found a seat tucked away at the far end of the graveyard and picnicked and enjoyed the panorama.
Rosenberg, a village on a slight ridge ahead, was said to have 4 places to stay, mostly Gasthöfe with Fremdenzimmer. We stopped at the second possibility which was closed but had a notice telling pilgrims to ring. We did and a plump elderly lady with long white sox and a black and white kilt promptly answered and came down and let us in. When she saw our rucksacks she took €5 off the already modest price (it was now €39 each for half-board) and gave us a bottle of fizzy water and said she'd put a flask of coffee in the living room for us. There was also cake and some interesting looking pills among the sugar lumps - pep pills for pilgrims or artificial sugar?
She gave us a quick run-down of the local sights - basically a painting in the church, said she and her husband were sitting in the garden, should we need anything - and took us up to our room. It was another old building with uneven floors. The big landing upstairs was decorated with a wild boar skin, a hyena skin and a stuffed heron and there were all sorts of old books and magazines lying around.
After sitting over the coffee in the Stube and reading the coffee style books lying around - about the treasures of Württemberg and the like, we went for a stroll round the local lake and took a look at the church which was on the other side of the road from our digs. Madame fed us and another elderly pair on chicken cordon bleu served by her elderly husband whose German was Frankish or Swabish or a mixture and what you might call a bit thick unless that was his teeth. The Frankish-Swabian language frontier goes through here. We didn't see madame again because he explained they were going out early the next morning and would just leave breakfast for us.
There was one other guest hogging the paper at breakfast, but the other pair had left.
We set off through more rolling countryside - no more shrines - hamlets, villages, lakes, forest with more deer. We came to a charming gazebo in the forest, but we'd just had a rest. Such things should be marked on maps.
In Gündelhardt Hector struggled to make sense of the bus timetables on each side of the road - we needed a bus to Crailsheim. They were so confusing he wasn't even sure which side of the road we should stand. We knew at least it was a schoolday because we'd seen a 'schoolday only' bus earlier so he could work on the 'schoolday only' list. He eventually worked out that we had to wait 45 minutes. I'd already noticed a little bakery such as you dream about with tables and chairs under umbrellas just down the road so we took ourselves off there to indulge our greed and had Granatsplitter with our coffee - I thought they were eclairs with cream, but they were made of Germanic dough, filled with custard and were disappointing.
At first sight Crailsheim seemed a bit of a dump and the River Jagst flowing languidly through it seemed muddy if not downright dirty. There was a charming looking old-fashioned hotel, the Three Kings, on the other side of the bridge so we make for that. The side door in had a notice saying the reception weren't there for the moment and we should apply at the bar next door. The bar was thick with smoke and the proprietress had a whisky voice. She too wanted to know where we were walking, then phoned the owner, gave us a code for the entrance and room so we could go and inspect it. We wanted to stay three nights so wanted somewhere reasonable and given such an unprepossessing entrance, it seemed sensible to go and look at the room. Despite the shabby entrance to the hotel, and a notice the English version of which said, "If you have no time to give me 3 minutes change for answer , ring No bell. I am not stand behind the door", the room was good.
We walked up later to the main square, also cobbled, no traffic and with the sort of fountain children could climb on and play hide and seek around which is just what they were doing. Later we ate outside at the pizza café and watched more children having great fun.
We had to get the bus back at 8.25 - allowed ten minutes to the bus station, but in fact more like 4 minutes is what is needed. Breakfast, a very lavish buffet in the old interesting bar, was from 7.30 but even at 7.30 there were various people eating - they looked like business people. Madame and her friends had a cosy niche with bench seats round a beer barrel at the entrance to the bar. There they chatted and watched over things.
There were more waves of pasture, many many larks, more deer in the woods. We finally climbed up Burgberg which has a look-out tower on top - though you have to bring up the key with you if you want to go up it. There is also a children's playground and lots of tables and chairs spread around. We just sat there in the sunshine on our own listening to all the birds - woodpeckers, cuckoos and so many others. It was dreamily wonderful.
I spent time studying the map names which said so much if we could have interpreted them - Rudilfsberg, Ratberg (Rat= advice) , Hasenbuehl, Heidelberg, Nonnenholz, Hirschhof. When we finally started to go down, we passed a middle aged cyclist picnicking and listening to his radio.
The walk down from the top was pleasant, though the path had been diverted from along a ridge to a track lower down. We went up and over another hill with views all round, past a grave yard and lots of visitors arriving for a funeral - was it for a child or a local celebrity? But the rest of the walk into Crailsheim went through endless suburbs. We diverted to our peaceful square again, sat under an umbrellas, consumed ice creams and watched the world go by.
It was time to buy postcards but there were virtually none - or a set of tiny scenes of various aspects of the town. The trouble, I suppose, was there was no one big thing to take a picture of - a dramatic mountain or a cathedral; on this walk we pass just lots of little delights - a charming lake, the hilltop with the birds which from afar looked nothing - and anyway you couldn't photograph the birdsong, small churches, the route of the Limes.
That evening it was cooler and we were the only ones who dined outside - at the Greek restaurant. No children were playing either.
The news was that there had been 3 bombs in Egypt.
"Pick up only personaly laundry - own risk" was another notice we discovered on the back of the bedroom door. We occasionally bumped into three young Asian men on the stairs and couldn't decide what they were doing there.
We left Crailsheim past the graveyard where we joined the E8. It was another very pretty day, and the lowering clouds all round added atmosphere and changed the colours to subtle blues and greys. It seemed we would get a heavy downpour at any minute - as someone in her garden pointed out to us - but somehow the darkest clouds always diverted before they got to us. We could see rain sheeting down all around and on Burgberg. The hill now hardly showed on the horizon although it had been a good climb up.
There were two river valleys, one narrow and filled with wild garlic and a notice telling us to keep to the little path as there were many rare flowers. There we startled a herd of deer. Then up and over and down again to a village and a castle to the wider Jagst valley, also wooded and pretty. The Jagst goes into the Neckar and then the Rhine. We followed the river past some ruins not even mentioned on the map and then past an old mill, and two covered bridges before we climbed up the slopes back onto a plateau of fields - no hedges or fences, just immense squares of different greens. If anything it was better than the valleys because there were wide views everywhere. Wonderful.
The rain clouds looked ever nearer and a sort of mist descended. Was this a prelude to rain or instead of rain? In case it was the latter, we used the map to take a direct route across the plateau, although we joined up with our path again, (which zig-zagged round the fields edges and was always clearly marked) to go past the remains of a monastery. From afar it looked some sort of modern tower but when we got there it was the end wall with some stone carvings of what had been the chapel. WE missed having a Topoguide French style but according to the plaque, the ruin was 500 years old.
The last kilometre down to Wallhausen had a marker every 100 metres. The rain was pursuing us - 600, 500, 400?.and then the heavens opened?.but the bus shelter wasn't too far away.
That evening we went back to the pizzeria. The weather was fine again but it was just too chilly to sit outside and we went inside. The owner, a Tamil, had seen where we'd eaten the previous night and we'd watched his cute little boy get a ride on his school friend's bicycle. He brought us a grappa after our pizza and asked what we were doing. ..and then showed us a booklet about Crailsheim after the war - it had been flattened by American bombers.
Next morning it was very wet and the forecast promised rain for 2 days. The choir festival catering was bearing down on me.
In the event I don't think it was so wet but we decided to have a look round Stuttgart and then go home - via the picturesque line between Stuttgart and Singen ; then onto Schaffhausen. We saw Frau Lehmann in the hall with a friend. "I was just telling my friend you might come back," she commented.