Still here. When the accomodation is superb and the price is right why wouldn’t we stay for a while. And the bonus of three days of great walking.

We walked around the rest of this large and attractive town nestled in to the Thuringian Forest and discovered a little more. At one end of town we discovered a beautiful park opposite a huge historic building with an equally huge open area with a beautiful religious painting on one end of what would have been a disused open, but covered area. What appeared to be a peaceful, contemplative space was now a venue for kids and their skate boards. Better for kids to be disturbing the peace than disturbing the police!!

At the other end of town a Lutheran event was taking up the entire platz or plaza – it was a Sunday service. It was crowded with mostly over sixty year olds, and they were fed all sorts of goodies including cakes, bratwurst and beer on long tables. This was followed by a four boy band, so disturbing the peace seems to be a norm in this otherwise tranquil city and that’s okay. On another side of town, a small creek peeks up between the masses of reeds but is not really given a voice. However the real attraction and where you see the tourists, is the forest, and all you hear there is the echo of tired footsteps for they have either just finished a long walk, or are just beginning to scale that Swiss hill.

It was a social day as well. At breakfast we were hiding away in a covid free corner when a mid aged woman came to sit at the table next to us with her loudly talking poodle. Then to our surprise two young couples with a child said something to her and she angrily found another seat. Our new neighbours smiled at us as though to say, well we got rid of the dog. We listened to them as they spoke in German, with us using sign language. When we left with our newly acquired auf wiedersehen, they said: ‘goodbye and enjoy your day’ in English.  Later I asked a small woman with a huge pack if she spoke English, she said ‘no’ and then asked me the way to Reisburg in English.  Later I asked two younger women where they were going with their large packs but they really did not know English, so one had me speak into her phone which translated it to German, They had just walked from Poland so we had a long chat.

Tomorrow we’re off to Gotha – see you there.