After an excellent and sumptuous breakfast, we walked from Neusach to Techendorf, all flat, all along the proper road around the lake. Techendorf is the main community on lake Weissensee, where things such as the tourist information, shops and cafés etc. are located. From there, you can take a chair lift up to the mountains, but it does not operate on Mondays. Never mind - we simply walked our way up.
Our rough map (given to us at the hotel) and sign posts were enough to help us decide where to go. Mittagsnock seemed like a good goal, not too high up and not too far away, and so we set off.
The views of the lake, mountains and woodland were great; I could have stopped and taken a picture every three steps (and almost did, as you can see!).
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| Click on this picture to enlarge and see why I took it! |
Getting closer to Mittagsnock, we found the path changed; it became steep, rocky and extremely narrow, with sheer drops on either side, making it a challenge in places (with no railing or anything else to hold on to). I became rather quiet, having to focus on each step. No photos of that part of the hike - it would have meant finding a safe spot to stop, and at that time, all I wanted was to move on and reach safer grounds again.
The views and feeling of having "made it" were rewarding, though, and although I am not sure we would have gone there if we had known the condition of the path before, I am glad we did it.
As before, we made it back to the hotel in time for coffee and cake, this time out in the sunny garden (and in the company of dozens of wasps - can't be avoided this time of year), and even had time to use one of our hotel's own rowing boats. Putting my hot feet into the fresh and cold water of the lake was such a pleasure! A quick visit to the sauna, then dinner - you can imagine we slept like logs that night, after having walked and hiked almost 20 km.
Oh, what lovely photos! I do wonder if this is the same lake where my Dad visited when he was in Germany just after the war! I can't get to the notes I have written about it so I am not sure. What a great hike you had! Sounds wonderful!
ReplyDeleteIt was challenging in parts, but wonderful.
DeleteThe lake can't be the same as the one your Dad visited, as we were not in Germany but in Austria. Maybe your Dad visited Lake Constance? That is one of the best-known lakes oüin Germany, and a beautiful area.
Lovely area. It always amuses me where cats choose to rest. They probably think the same of you in a rowing boat.
ReplyDeleteYou are right about cats; I have observed this often when we still had cats at home.
DeleteWhat a great day, except for the rather dangerous part of the hike which made me feel quite anxious just reading about it. It's great that you could have all that exercise in beautiful places and then return to the life of kaffee und kuchen and spa and dinner! What fun.
ReplyDeleteThe kaffee and kuchen and all the rest felt even better after the hike, mixed with the right kind of feelong tired, and some relief as well.
DeleteI have just caught up with your first two holiday posts. What a lovely area you picked. I went to Google Maps to find out exactly where you were. I think I spotted you walking with OK in the aerial imagery. You were like tiny ants moving up the mountain.
ReplyDeleteA lovely area indeed! And sometimes we did feel a little like tiny ants compared to the massive rocks, high peaks and steep drops.
DeleteBeautiful views from up there. I am such a wimp I would probably have turned around at the tricky point and walked back down!
ReplyDeleteI can be quite a wimp, too, but once we had come that far we did not even think about turning round - besides, going down was at times even more tricky than climbing up.
DeleteThe scenery is breath-taking.
ReplyDeleteSome of the uphill bits were breath-taking for me, too ;-)
DeleteImpressive views... But not my kind of "walking" ;) ... I agree with your reply to JayCee: In my experience too, going down is often worse than climbing up!! (and knowing that, nowadays, I refrain from going up in the first place!)
ReplyDeleteMonica, I can walk, walk, walk for hours on end if the terrain is relatively flat and the path easy, but with hiking, I need breaks to catch my breath and collect my mind every now and then (more often than O.K., who is much fitter than I). I enjoy it nonetheless and am sure it does me good.
DeleteBeautiful scenery - I see the kitty - and the mountains are awesome. You were brave to climb in the more dangerous places, and to hike 20 km was fantastic. can imagine your feet in the lake, and then the heat of the sauna, made for a relaxing/refreshing evening.
ReplyDeleteSadly I can no longer walk those distances, even on the flat, but I still enjoy walks of just a couple of miles on good days when it's cooler. Walking here in these continuing 90F temps is not fun!
We had perfect walking/hiking weather throughout our stay, neither too hot nor too cold or wet.
DeleteOn that second day, we never expected to walk 20 km, it just turned out that way!
Oddly enough I was talking yesterday to the surgeon who is about to replace my kidney stent and we discovered that we have a mutual dislike of arêtes and do not cross them out of choice. Like YP I'm keeping track on Google Earth and it's really enjoyable seeing the photos and trying to match them with the location from which they were taken.
ReplyDeleteI've a lot more still to enjoy so I'll get on my way.
I like the idea of you and others looking up the locations of my pictures on Google Earth!
DeleteWhat are arêtes? I know the command "arrète!" in French, as in "stop!", but that does not really fit here, does it?