We left Tuesday (the 4th of September) and returned on Thursday afternoon (the 13th), nine nights and 9 great breakfasts, 36 courses of excellent evening meals, an estimated 75 km* (46 or so miles) of hiking and several gallons of sweat later.
It was a great 1 1/2 weeks with perfect hiking weather most of the time. It was only raining when we arrived, and a little bit last week Friday. Actually, it was almost a little too warm (hence the gallons of sweat) during some of our hikes, especially when the sometimes very rocky paths led steeply uphill with no trees offering their welcome shade. But we made it to the three highest summits of the National Park plus a fourth mountain and the spring of a river I am sure you will all have heard about - more of that later.
Our hotel was an "all-organic" one, running their own organic farm which has been in the family for 600 years, and much of what ended up on our breakfast and dinner table came from that farm. The hotel's website (in English) is here, if you are interested.
Although the village of St. Oswald is rather small, we heard more road traffic than I do in my flat here close to town centre - our room was facing the main road through the village. It took us one or two days to get used to the place, but once things felt more familiar, we were quite happy there.
Soon, we developed a most pleasant pattern of how we spent our days: Superb breakfast (buffet style, with a wide choice of "everything") that would not even make you think about food for the rest of the day, then off on a hike until mid or late afternoon; coffees and cakes at the hotel if we were back before 4:00 pm; one or two relaxing hours in the hotel's own spa; dress for dinner, eat & drink; retreat to room for the night.
I am going to show you our tours chronologically. Let's start now with our arrival on Tuesday a week ago.
Not very impressive, is it? This is the view from our room as we saw it when we had just taken our luggage inside. As I said, it had been raining.
From our balcony, we could also see part of the spa area:
At 9:25 the next morning (Wednesday, the 5th of September), it looked even less hopeful for any good hiking that day:
But as is often the case, the day turned out to be beautiful after the morning mist had cleared. The pictures of our first gentle walk (not a proper hike, just a smallish tour to get our bodies used to something a bit more strenuous) are not yet on my computer; I will show them here as soon as I have transferred them (the ones in this post are from my old digital camera which finally came to use again after many months of inactivity).
Look at the beautiful mellow evening light around half six the same day:
There is more - much more - to come; brace yourself for tons of pictures of trees and paths and trees and forest views, and some more trees!
* Estimate based on the hiking tours in our little guide book
Oh, wow! I can't wait to see the rest. You must feel so healthy. Not only from all that walking, but from those marvelous meals of fresh, beautiful food. I see that the bark beetle which has decimated much of the forests of Colorado in the past 10 years has also flourished in the Bavarian Forest. So heartbreaking.
ReplyDeleteThe food was great, but a four-course dinner every evening felt a bit much, even after a lot of walking!
DeleteYes, the bark beetle is responsible for a lot of damage there, along with Kyrill, a big storm that raged in 2007.
Google somehow did not accept my comment and now it's gone! Bah! I am so glad you're back and looking forward to all your photos. My Bavarian sil thinks he has never visited this park. He grew up near Rosenheim and probably went south for walking. He and my dd Emily attended uni in Munich together and I have one bil who lived for years near Kronach (near Coberg) in northern Bavaria. It's all pretty beautiful for walking IMHO!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of Ingmar and whether he knows the area. You are right, there is plenty of great walking and hiking country in Bavaria. The special thing about the Bavarian Forest is that there, everything is pretty much left as nature sees fit to work it, with as little human intervention as possible.
DeleteI looked up your hotel and immediately loved everything about it.
ReplyDeleteSo glad you and OK had such a marvelous vacation.
Thanks for good wishes regarding our days with Hurricane Florence - we have been lucky so far - couple more days with winds and heavy rain.
Hugs - Mary
I am glad to know you have been lucky and "only" got the strong winds and heavy rains from Florence, without the damage it has caused in many other places.
DeleteWe liked the style of the hotel, too, with its natural wood surfaces, clear lines and uncluttered spaces.
That certainly looks like a lovely place to stay and which to make a base for your walks. I've been trying desperately to remember where we stayed for a couple of weeks many years ago. It was in a smallish village but we were able to visit Regensburg several times.
ReplyDeleteWithout my blog to support my Memory, I probably would not remember half of the time where I've been!
DeleteI think the first view looks quite nice even with the hint of fog... A mystery waiting to explore :) But of course, for the actual exploring, sunshine is probably preferable!
ReplyDeleteI do like a good fog or mist, Monica, but yes, for a mountain hike, you want clear views :-)
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