Judith Johnson
  • Blog
  • About me
  • Poetry
  • Travels
  • Projects
  • SWM Extra
  • Miscellanea
  • Pen Portraits
  • Contact/To Buy

Bummeln in Bavaria

17/8/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Over the last few years we have met plenty of people who are drawn back, year after year, to the Austrian Tyrol, with its clean air, friendly people, peace and quiet, and beautiful lakes and mountains. We seem to have joined them, but this year we opted to stay over the border in Ruhpolding, Bavaria. We were lucky in our small hotel, half an hour’s walk from the town centre, among quiet meadows.

A hundred yards or so from where we stayed was a spring, where all comers can fill their bottles (a contribution is requested, and honesty box provided). We went most evenings, and often met locals who had driven there for their weekly supply. My German is rusty, but it’s always a pleasure to be able to exchange some friendly words, though so many Germans are keen to practise their English!

We wandered further on one evening and found a signpost for a 3¾ hour walk to the top of Hochfelln, which seemed like a good idea for the next day. We packed our rucksacks with water and a Seed Stacked Flapjack bar (top emergency snack!), rain jacket and trousers, and set off. It was an uphill hike, with no easy downhills to speak of, through meadows, woods, and at one point our very narrow track ran along the edge of a steep hillside (I avoided looking down!). The simple pleasures of looking up through green leaves, of standing below ancient rock-faces, of exerting your legs, lungs and backs to the point of breathlessness, of watching a butterfly land on your hand to taste the salt in your sweat, of standing by a mountain-stream and listening to it rushing along, are profound. There is something joyful about hiking – human beings aren’t built to sit at computer screens in stuffy rooms all day!

When we finally got to the top of the Hochfelln we were intrigued to see Alpine Choughs for the first time, patrolling the café tables like so many Trafalgar Square pigeons!


Picture
Alpine Chough
We took a different route down, and for the last leg found ourselves on a zig-zagging road. The storm clouds seen in the far distance from the top of the Hochfelln were catching up. A car went by, stopped and reversed. A couple on their way home to Reit in Winkl, who had seen us further up the mountain (two British people in shorts, socks and sunhats, surely inconspicuous!!), asked if we would like a lift for the last couple of miles to Ruhpolding. “Oh yes please!” I said.

The majority of local folk we encountered were charming and friendly. Some of our fellow British guests at the hotel expressed surprise at how warm, amiable and humorous they found the Germans they met. Well, they say travel broadens the mind – another national stereotype happily disproved!

Wherever we venture, I always like to search out any local war memorials. We found one halfway up the hill to St Georg’s Church, which apparently had recently been renovated after some years of neglect. There was a beautiful pieta inside the chapel, and a mural on the wall showing a young soldier taking his leave of his family – a reminder, if one was needed, that in all the countries involved in the two World Wars, there were homes in places like this where sons, husbands and fathers would never again be returning home to help bring in the harvest.  In the Heimatmuseum there are two more panels remembering the war-dead, and these feature enamelled photographs, as do so many graves in mainland Europe.


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Lifelong bookworm, love writing too. Have been a theatrical agent and reflexologist among other things, attitude to life summed up by Walt Whitman's MIRACLES.

    If you would like to subscribe to my blog, please click on RSS Feed link below:

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Arts
    Books
    Family Matters
    History
    Miscellaneous
    My Fantastic Five
    Natural World
    People
    Running & Walking
    Travel

    Archives

    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    November 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    October 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    September 2009
    July 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009

    RSS Feed