Five Days in Limpach: Sunday

Sunday (10 May 2026) was not only Mother's Day in Germany, but also a very important day for the village of Limpach: Every year on the second Sunday in May, they celebrate St. Georg (George in English, but without the last "e" in German), their patron saint.

Every inhabitant of Limpach is automatically a member of the Georgs-Bruderschaft ("George's Brotherhood"), meaning they help and stand by each other.

Horses have always been important in the rural area, for farming as well as for transporting goods and people. No wonder, therefore, that the celebration involves riding groups from Limpach and various nearby villages and hamlets who turn up in their finery, horses polished and groomed, for a special mass held on the green space behind the church and the vicarage, followed by the priest blessing the horses.

A procession with all the horses, several brass bands, pilgrims and dignitaries walks from Limpach to Höge, a distance of about 1.5 km, and back again. This is called Georgiritt ("George's Ride"), and all participants take great pride in it. Photos can be seen on the website of St. Georg, the church in Limpach; just scroll down until after the text.

In yesterday's post I showed you the decorations on the vicarage and the "gate"; all this was done for the Georgiritt. Also, on the lawn between the hotel and the building where our flat was, tables and benches had been set up, and by the time O.K. and I got up, almost all of them were full of people having sausages, beer and other drinks.

We woke up at around 7:00 that morning when the church bells started to ring, and from that moment on, the celebration was in full swing. The noise of brass bands, church bells, whinnieing of horses and chatter of the crowds were enough to draw anyone outside. Luckily, the sun was shining, and as the morning progressed, it was warming up.

 View across "our" part of the garden.

O.K. and I only stuck around for a little bit after breakfast; we had no intention to attend mass or have sausages and beer on the lawn - we wanted to go on the longest of the hikes we had in mind for this holiday: The Höchsten-Runde.

Höchsten literally means "highest", and it is indeed the highest hill in the area. We've walked that same tour twice in 2023, as I have described here and here.

The 18 km tour is well signposted and leads up and down hills, across meadows and through woodland. We found everything more or less as we remembered, but unlike previous times when we stopped for a shandy at the beer garden on the Höchsten, we decided to just drink from our water bottles and have our shandies back at the hotel, again on our own patio - the Höchsten beer garden was packed, and staff very busy because of all the visitors for Mother's Day.

I let the pictures speak for themselves:

Click to enlarge; on this and the next two pictures, you can just about make out Lake Constance and the Alps rising behind, with snow-capped mountains.

After returning to our flat and enjoying the shandy on our quiet patio, it was time to shower and change into suitable clothes for dinner, which was again delicious. 

The weather forecast was right: In the course of the evening, the wind picked up considerably, and later the long awaited rain began to fall.