We were collected from the station by our German friends from Altheim. Our first foray was, you guessed it, the town church, and yet another type of architecture, this time Gothic dating back to the 600s. The most interesting part for me was the balcony at the rear and along one side, a later addition made of painted green wood with motive panelling. They are bike riders and we are walkers so no choice, [...]
Last day on tour with the famous world walking duo, Corrie and Will on their final lap today. I haven’t talked about food much because it’s nothing special but I must tell you about the last few days. We love croissants, and if you love them as much as we do, don’t come to Germany for them, well what I mean is choose your croissant places in Germany. We found two of them, one [...]
We started the day by going to church, an unusual event for us, but we were looking for something special. We love Gregorian chanting so we went at 10.30 to the yellow Theatine Church and had a wonderful time listening to what seemed to be deep echoes from the past. We then ventured further south to the Assam Church. It was an amazing Late Baroque or Rococo building where I could look at the [...]
The train usually takes you to the mountains but we had to take the bus. The reason for this is due to a train accident just outside the town where we stayed. It was a very bad accident with five dead and scores injured, so the bus gets very crowded. I’m sure it’s run privately and I think the owners used to pack sardines. The bus was 30 minutes late and there was an unusual [...]
It was time. I had a mountain to climb, and my main purpose for this was to put my research into action. I’ve been walking uphill slowly so I don’t put too much pressure on my AF heart. If I do this, and over 1000 metres with no repercussions then this means I can confirm that it is not the height that causes my AF and therefore should be able to climb maybe over [...]
We like walking, sometimes love it, but to walk two kms to the wrong end of town to see the info officer who told us to go back if we wanted a difficult walk. She suggested we climb Mount Wank. There is no end to German words echoing English words. I can roll them off my tongue so easily: There is fhart, der crapfen, schitten, koch, dick and so the list goes on. It [...]
We said goodbye to our gorgeous hosts: Briggite and Richard, they were superb, he for giving me detailed information re places I asked him about, giving me burners on a stick to find our way home from a sunset, and just being available. Then her, she so genuinely wants to help no matter what it is, and both, were very friendly. We came upon her one day walking Ofra in her favourite part of paradise. [...]
We left late for our mountain at midday on a warm, short shirt sleeve day. We were feeling great. Up the river which had already lost most of its wildness but still had that lovely sound that only fast flowing rocky rivers can make as the water hits a boulder then crashes, the steeper the river the deeper the sound. The mountain began with a gentle slope as we followed our river upstream. The stream [...]
It rained all last night and this morning, so we set out to climb a hill. Gorgeous hill, and very steep meaning we left the river way down below a hundred metres or so and it was fascinating looking down through the newly culled forest. I was thinking of these tall timber lookouts for maybe a couple of people about three metres up. I had been trying to work out what they were for [...]
Okay, no hiding it, let’s get it out, I’ll be honest with you - no sunset, no the world hasn’t come to end, well, nearly! The sun did set but not for us, it wasn’t as though it knew we were coming or anything like that, and thought: ‘I’m not coming out tonight’. No it was less complex, or maybe not, I’ll let you work it out and see what you come up with, if [...]
